


Lost in the Fall

by redmasque



Category: Lost, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redmasque/pseuds/redmasque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Post-Season 4 Supernatural, during Season 1 Lost) Dean, Sam, and Castiel are zapped out of the church, after Lucifer's grand re-entrance to Earth, and onto one particular flight 815, flying over the Pacific. When the airplane crashes, everyone must cooperate in order to keep sanity and some semblance of order. The longer you stay on a seemingly deserted island, though, the more people want to know about each other...and about the odd skills they carry with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waking Up

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Aleigh (my Beta/second-look gal) for reading this over for me and typing it up so quickly, by the way. Once I know your username, I'll mention it in a note like this...heh.  
> Anyhow, I have only completed Season 1 of Lost, but it is just so...so shiny...and I had to...this was nagging at me in the break before Season 9 of Supernatural...so I hope you like it. This is gonna be a hell of a ride, folks, and I need you to hang in there for me, especially since I don't keep to update schedules very well. The plot shall thicken and cliches shall occur and twists and turns are inevitable. Hope you enjoy the ride.

Dean’s head was pounding like a miniature timpani player had crawled its way inside his head while he had been sleeping. He scrunched up his face in irritation and rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to crack open his eyelids without causing any more pain. The light that struck his blurred vision was much brighter than it should have been, and he quickly shut his eyes again. _Hadn’t he been on an airplane?_ Why the hell were the overhead lights all on in the middle of the night? Damn planes—

No, no… something was wrong. Dean opened his eyes again. His headache was subsiding, and the timpani player was getting tired. Fortunately, that meant that he could hear everything that much better.

_Un_ fortunately, that meant that he could hear everything that much better, because what he heard confirmed that what he was seeing was real. There was no plane around him. Dean was lying flat on his back in the sand. He was on a beach. _A fucking beach._ The sounds of eater crashing in the waves against the shore was not all that he heard, though. There was screaming…shouting…crying…

_What the hell happened here?_

Dean sat up and patted his arms, head, torso, and legs to make sure everything was in fact still there and in one relatively moveable piece. He sighed in relief as he managed to move his toes and bend his knees as normal. On wobbling legs, he stood up and surveyed the entire surrounding area.

The first thing he saw was pointing, yelling, and general running around. There had to have been between thirty and fifty people all trying to either help others get up or getting out of the way of other people who were trying to do so, themselves.

The second thing he noticed was the plane. Scratch that – it was maybe a third of the damn plane that he _should_ have still been inside. When it was intact, it had been an Oceanic Airlines jet, according to the magazines and cocktail napkins he had studied during the flight. He’d been terrified to look out of the window or up the aisle to see the other passengers seated in front of him. The middle of the freaking Apocalypse and he still couldn’t handle commercial flights. 

_Planes crash,_ he remembered himself saying to his brother all those months ago on the Indy flight. Dean usually didn’t mind having the right to say “I told you so”, but this time was a bit different.

Then came the third thing Dean saw; a man shouted for someone to get away from the plane, then the explosion. The roar of the turbine stuttered for a moment, and he ducked and covered his ears in anticipation of the blast. The remaining fragments of the plane burst into a fireball that sent a shockwave over the beach. That snapped his brain out of its remaining haze. A jolt of adrenaline shot through the hunter as he realized the most worrisome part of all this.

Sam and Castiel were nowhere to be seen.

Of course, Dean’s first instinct was to run to the most dangerous place. He hurried across the beach to the smoldering wreckage, dodging the fiery debris that had rained down moments before and still were smoking at his feet. He passed a blonde woman, shrieking in pure panic and, probably, for a lack of enough collected thought to do anything else. A man, balding and bleeding from a gash over his eyebrow and under his cheekbone, looked like he was surprised at his own ability to still move.

_Sam, Sam, Sam –where the hell are you?_ The thought echoed over and over in Dean’s head.

“Dean!” a voice shouted, just a few yards behind him. Dean whirled around to see his brother carrying a dazed but conscious young woman in his arms.

“You okay, Sammy?” Dean called, unable to stop the scared crack in his voice and not bothering to care.

“Fine,” Sam shouted back over the commotion. “You seen Cas?”

“Not yet.”

“Find him.”

Dean didn’t need to be told twice. As Sam carried the woman towards the tree line at the edge of the beach, Dean turned and continued running towards the wreckage. The closer he got, the more bodies he saw. There were so _many,_ and he couldn’t tell if they were alive or not. He couldn’t tell if they were Cas or not. The plane was still burning and where the hell were they and-

Dean forced himself to stop and take a few deep breaths. _Maybe he pulled one of his disappearing acts and just poofed out of here,_ Dean thought. He almost hoped that the angel had. Sure, the guy healed at a ridiculous rate and basically nothing normal killed him, but that didn’t mean that the guy was completely invincible.

Dean stumbled onward, helping people up and away from the debris, all the while keeping a desperate eye out for a familiar, tan trench coat and mop of brown hair.

“Hey, mister!” Dean looked up towards the tree line to see a blonde man with arms full of supplies.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.” The man shifted things around in his arms as he tried to snatch one more thing up off the ground. He coughed from the smoke in the air before making eye contact with Dean.

“Could you pick up that book by your foot?”

Dean glanced down in time to see a soggy copy of Watership Down at his heels, floating pathetically in the shallow, lapping waves. He picked up the bedraggled paperback and offered it up to the other man.  
“Could you just stick that on top of the stack? Right there, yeah. Thanks, man.”

“Hey,” Dean blurted as the man turned around to leave, “have you seen a guy about so tall”—he gestured a couple of inches below the top of his own head – “and wearing a suit and a trench coat?”

The man smiled grimly. 

“Yeah, the guy’s about twenty yards over that way.” He nodded in the direction of a pile of rubble halfway to the tree line.

“He’s not awake,” the man added. “I think he’s alive, but I figured it was best not to move the fella. He was far enough from the working parts of the plane, anyway.”

Dean thanked him quickly, already rushing off towards the small cluster of metal and luggage the blonde had gestured towards.

“Thanks for saving my book!” the man called after the hunter.

As he approached the area, Dean quickly spotted the familiar figure he had been looking for in the wreckage and picked up his pace, trying to reach the rebel angel as quickly as possible. Castiel was somehow still upright in his seat and even buckled in, almost like he’d never dropped with the rest of the aircraft. A light groan escaped him when Dean reached him, as if reacting to the hunter’s presence. Suddenly, Dean wasn’t sure what to do. Did the rules about not moving an unconscious person after a violent accident still apply to angels? The fact that Cas was unconscious in the first place meant something was obviously wrong.

He hesitated, looking the angel over, checking for any signs of serious injury. Other than a scrape on his forehead, nothing seemed to be wrong. Dean knelt next to the airplane seat. He reached out to unbuckle the belt, but then changed his mind; if something _was_ wrong…best to not let him fall out. Even with his angel mojo, Dean wasn’t sure how Cas would handle a vessel with a broken spine or something.

“Hey, Cas?” he tried, lightly tapping the angel’s shoulder. “Cas? Hey, buddy, wake up.” The angel murmured something under his breath and grimaced slightly.

“Come on, Cas,” Dean breathed, resting his hand firmly on the angel’s shoulder. A pair of familiar blue eyes slid open; Dean let out a breath of relief that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Hey there, Cas,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “You scared me there for a bit.”

“Dean?” Castiel blinked and sat up straight, wincing a bit as he did so. “What…”

“The plane went down,” Dean explained, withdrawing his hand. “The front and back broke off. We’re…somewhere. I’m not sure where, exactly. Do you think you can move?”

Castiel squinted and looked down at himself, then around at the beach and the burning fragments of the plane. His eyes lost focus for a moment, staring at nothing in particular, like he was listening to some distant noise that no one else could hear. Breaking his odd trance, the angel fumbled with his seatbelt and slid forward in his seat. His jaw was set and his movements were tense.

“You okay, man?” Dean asked, surprised by the clear discomfort in Castiel’s posture and expression. He still didn’t know much about angels, but he was pretty sure he’d never seen Cas look so… pained, physically. That couldn’t possibly be a good sign.

“I will be fine,” Cas replied dismissively. He pushed himself into a standing position and stared out over the ocean towards the horizon. 

“Did anyone else survive the crash?” he asked. “Is Sam alright?”

“Sammy's off by the rest of the plane, moving people to safety. He's okay. There's a good number of people who made it, I think. It's chaos, though.”

“We ought to join the others.” Cas started walking quickly across the sand, towards the smoke from the earlier explosion. Dean glanced around and grabbed a familiar-looking duffel bag from under a piece of what at one point must have been the overhead compartment, before hurrying off after Cas.

“Hey, so, uh, do you have any way of knowing where we are?” Dean called out to his companion. “Like, some angel GPS thing?”

“…I cannot tell where we are,” Castiel replied, slowing so the hunter could catch up with him. “We are in the Pacific Ocean, obviously on an island. That is as much as I know.”

“Okay,” Dean said, trying to get the gears turning in his head. “Any way we can just zap outta here and get help?”

“You are willing to leave these people behind?” the angel countered.

“No, I’m saying that if we get coordinates for this place somehow and then just jump over to the nearest civilization on the mainland, maybe we can send a boat or something to get these folks to safety.”

Castiel stopped in his tracks as they finally reached the main part of the wrecked plane. He furrowed his brow after a few seconds’ pause. His confused frown turned into a wide-eyed look of nervous surprise.

“Something wrong there, Cas?”

“I cannot leave.”

“You what?” It was Dean’s turn to frown.

“I cannot leave,” Castiel repeated. “Something is preventing me. I cannot sense the others’ presences, either.”

“And you usually just can on a dime, right?”

“Yes.”

“So something’s drained your batteries, then?” Dean asked. “We’re stuck here?”

“That appears to be the situation. I can still feel my Grace, but I cannot seem to access it.”

“Well,” the hunter said, starting forward again, “we’d better see how we can help out, then.”

Castiel’s expression returned to its usual deadpan and he nodded, following Dean as they made their way towards the broken aircraft. All that they could do now was lend a hand, and they intended on doing whatever they could to quell the current chaos.

 

Hours passed before Dean got the chance to finally sit down and rest. There were about fifty other people still breathing. Most of them had been fixed up by a medical doctor who happened to have been on board, but some of them… well, saying they were “worse for wear” was probably an understatement. There was a man with a piece of shrapnel imbedded in his body, painfully sticking out like a third, unwanted arm. Dean hadn’t seen the blonde guy after their earlier run-in, but he’d looked like he had been in okay condition then. The doctor guy had a gash on his side that he’d managed to disinfect and get stitched up right away. Hopefully it _stayed_ disinfected and stitched up, for everyone’s sake. Dean and Sam had experience patching up injuries, but they weren’t doctors by any means.

The sun was going to set within the next couple of hours, and Dean couldn’t even fathom the idea of sleep. Even though the chaos around him had died down, his mind was still racing. How the hell were they going to get off the island? And speaking of hell, how was the rest of the world going to handle the Apocalypse while Team Free Will was stranded somewhere seemingly inescapable? _What about Lucifer?_

Dean swatted that last thought aside. It wouldn’t help to worry when he, Sam, and Castiel couldn’t do anything about it. The Apocalypse would have to wait until heaven’s only active rebel got enough mojo back to zap them out of here.

“Hey, you, sir,” said a voice behind Dean. The hunter looked over his shoulder to see two men carrying wood and kindling in their arms. One of them was muscular, with hair about the same length as Sam’s and a dark, Middle-Eastern-looking skin tone; the other was skinny, blonde, and pale.

“Who, me?”

“What is your name?” the darker-skinned man asked.

“Dean.”

“Dean, do you have a lighter?” The two men dropped their supplies on the sand as Dean nodded a “yes”.

“Good,” the man said. “Will you assist us in lighting the signal fire?”

“Sure thing.” The hunter stood and approached the firewood. “What’s your name?”

“I am Sayid,” the man explained, “and that is Charlie.” He nodded at the skinny guy, who smiled half-heartedly at Dean before stepping back and fiddling with bandage tape wrapped around the fingers of his left hand.

“Well, wish I could say it’s good to meet you, but these aren’t really the best circumstances,” Dean said. Sayid nodded in agreement. The two of them began setting up the wood and kindling as Charlie watched, deep in thought. Three minutes and a few splinters later, Dean lit the fire. A cloud of thick, dark smoke began billowing directly upwards. Dean almost laughed at the sight; mysterious forces and thick black smoke – it was sad how comfortably familiar they were by now. Maybe he could get lucky for once. Maybe there wouldn’t be any demons on this one, solitary island. _Maybe._

But who was he kidding? Even if there were no demons, there would always be something else. There was always something unnatural about any and every location he and Sam found themselves in. No matter how much he wished, he knew that there was no escaping the things he and Sam hunted. Dean could already feel something extremely off about this island; he knew their problems were far from over.

“So,” Charlie said, breaking the silence, “where’re you from, Dean? Anyone with you on the flight?” Sayid shot the young man a warning glance.

“I travel a lot,” Dean answered easily. “I’m from Kansas, originally. My brother and a…friend of ours were on the flight in the seats by me. They made it, though.” Not sure whether to thank God or not, he added silently.

“That’s lucky,” Charlie said. “Flying home, then?”

“Not exactly,” Dean replied. “We weren’t supposed to be on the plane in the first place. Flight change and stuff, you know?”

“I see.” The three stared into the fire for a moment. The only noise breaking through the air were the crackling of the flames in front of them, the rushing of waves at the end of the beach, the wind in the trees, and the soft sound of someone crying in the distance. Dean didn’t like all of this time that he suddenly had, left alone in his own thoughts. Especially not when the nearest booze was probably hundreds of miles away.

“I’m from all the way back in England.” It almost sounded like a humorous comment, but Charlie said it in such a bleak manner that it kept Dean and Sayid from cracking a smile; both grimaced instead.

“I was trying to get my band out to L.A. for a gig,” Charlie continued. “I was the only one on that plane, course.”

“What’s your band’s name?” Dean asked, trying to keep the conversation from dying.

“Ever heard of Driveshaft?”

“Sure, I have,” the hunter laughed. “My dad left one of your CDs in our car when he left the old girl with us.” He turned to look Charlie up and down and said, “So you’re the bassist, right?”

“Yeah, I am!” The guy’s mood visibly brightened, a proud smile spreading across his face.

“You guys are pretty cool,” Dean admitted. “I thought you broke up, though.”

“Nah,” Charlie said. “We were on a hiatus of sorts.”

“Nice.”

“The sun will be setting soon,” Sayid said suddenly. “I will watch the fire for a while. You two should go back and eat something while we still have food pre-prepared.”

“Want us to bring you something?” Charlie offered.

“No, no,” Sayid said. “I will eat later.” Dean nodded to him. 

“See you back at camp, then, Sayid.” Dean stuck his hand out for the man to shake. After a moment’s hesitation, the Middle-Eastern man returned the gesture with a tight smile… or a grimace – Dean couldn’t tell. He didn’t really care to think about it too much, either, as his stomach protested his few-second delay in returning to camp. 

Food sounded really, _really_ good.

 

Castiel opened his eyes to meet the sight of a blurry Dean Winchester kneeling beside him. The angel blinked a few times to adjust his vision. He had been unconscious, he immediately assessed…and he had been dreaming...or hearing something. It hardly mattered, seeing as how he couldn't remember what it had been about. Confusion. Castiel found himself confused more often in the past several months than he had for centuries. After dazedly looking over his surroundings through heavy eyelids, he opened them wide in the purest state of confusion he had experienced yet.

Dean was talking. Castiel made eye contact with him, his vessel’s brain trying and failing to process what he was seeing. It took a few moments to register what the human was saying.

“...scared me there for a bit.”

“Dean?” Castiel managed to grate out, voice rougher than usual. He pushed off the back of the airplane seat to sit up straight. A sharp pain lanced up his side and back, and he very nearly dropped back into the seat.

“What...” he started to ask, looking behind Dean momentarily. There was rubble, small piles of flaming, twisted metal with a backdrop made up of sand and a great body of salt water.

“The plane went down. The front and back broke off,” Dean explained. “We're... somewhere. I’m not sure where, exactly. You think you can move?”

Dean was clearly worried, and even Castiel was a beginning to sense a similar feeling wash over him. What had sent the plane down? He couldn't remember sensing anything strange before drifting off to sleep beside Dean. He hadn’t needed to sleep, but, once the nervous human had drifted out of consciousness, the thought of slumber had become strangely appealing. But, then…

Then, Castiel had woken up here.

He listened hard, trying to pick up anything from his brothers and sisters, hoping he could hear something of some help to him in his disoriented state. He met only silence, not a hint of chatter. Strange – he had expected the angels to be _screaming_ now that Lucifer had risen… _They must all be busy,_ Castiel assumed. 

He focused, then, on the matter at hand. He had read over the safety guide that Sam had been skimming through shortly after… _appearing_ on the plane, and he attempted to imitate the diagram showing how to unbuckle the seat's safety belt. There was a _click,_ and the angel allowed himself a moment of triumphant satisfaction before sliding forward in the tipped seat. The pain in his side immediately shot through him again as he leaned against the edge of the seat. His shoes touched the sand.

“You okay, man?” Dean was looking at Castiel from every angle, it seemed. It was as though he had thought that Castiel would break as easily as a human in the plane crash. The angel refrained from telling Dean that he likely would have been dead, if not for his healing abilities. Maybe he didn't need to hear that.

“I will be fine,” he replied. He set his jaw and stood up, ignoring another flare of pain. “Did anyone else survive the crash? Is Sam alright?”

“Sammy's off by the rest of the plane, moving people to safety,” Dean explained. “There's a good number of people who made it out, I think. It's chaos, though.”

“We ought to join the others,” Cas told him, and set forward to find the other Winchester. Dean hurried after him. 

“Hey,” Dean said. The angel slowed down, and the hunter fell into step beside him. “So, uh, do you have any way of knowing where we are? Like, some angel GPS thing?”

Castiel hesitated, taking a moment to remember what “GPS” stood for, and tried reaching out with his senses. Like his earlier attempt at hearing the angels, he found nothing: no reference points, no location, no _anything._ The water looked dark and cold, however, and smelled very distinct.

“…I cannot tell where we are,” the angel replied. “We are in the Pacific Ocean, obviously on an island. That is as much as I know.”

“Okay…any way we can just zap outta here and get help?”

“You are willing to leave these people behind?” the angel wondered aloud. That wasn’t very Winchester-like behavior.

“No –” Castiel tuned Dean out temporarily, reassured enough by that one word to return his focus to the wrecked middle section of the aircraft on the beach ahead. Once again, he tried to reach out with his Grace, to unfurl his wings into a physical dimension and fly to safety.

The angel stopped in his tracks.

Nothing. Again, he was met with _nothing._ His Grace was still there, he could feel it, but it eluded his grasp. For the first time since he woke up on the island, Cas felt a flash of true panic. His ability to take off and find help was somehow dampened; he was lost and trapped and suddenly felt so…small.

“Something wrong there, Cas?” Dean snapped the angel out of his racing thoughts.

“I cannot leave.” Castiel managed to keep his voice level.

“You what?”

“I cannot leave. Something is preventing me.” The angel reached out with his mind and could not sense a single other person’s soul on the island for more than a second at a time. Each one flashed through like voices on a high-speed radio scanner. It made him dizzy just trying to count the number of different ones he could pick up. 

“I cannot sense the others’ presences, either.”

“And you usually just can on a dime, right?”

“Yes.”

“So something’s drained your batteries, then?” Dean asked. “We’re stuck here?”

“That appears to be the situation. I can still feel my Grace, but I cannot seem to access it.”

“Well,” the hunter said, continuing onwards, towards the smoking wreckage ahead, “we’d better see how we can help out, then.”

Castiel nodded and resisted the urge to wince in pain as he followed the hunter. Help. Yes, he could still help. There was always that. The Winchesters must have rubbed off on him already, the angel realized, smiling a little as he walked into dangerous territory once again because of them. For some reason, he didn’t entirely mind. Maybe the growing empathy inside him was a good thing.

So he helped. He entered the chaos behind Dean and immediately found a man trapped under a large piece of debris. He lifted the metal and helped the man up with his free hand. The man hadn’t noticed Castiel’s superior strength as he scrambled to safety, to the angel’s relief. The brothers would want him to hold his identity back from the other survivors, or so he assumed. The angel did his best to help as many others as possible, until his own body’s pain became unbearable. He leaned against a makeshift shelter—one of several which had been assembled since the crash—to rest and inspect his vessel. The tan coat was shrugged off along with his suit jacket, and he carefully un-tucked his shirt. The white material was stained red all along his right side, and he hissed as he pulled the fabric away from his skin. His vessel’s flesh was bruised black and blue and sickly shades of yellow-gray. There was an odd gash along his ribcage, too, which was still bleeding sluggishly. _What could have caused that?_ Castiel placed his hand on the skin on either side of the wound and focused his healing energy onto it.

His weakness startled him. He dropped his arm, suddenly exhausted and out of breath. The wound had shrunk substantially, but it was still there, bleeding and angry and, above all things, painful. A shaking sigh escaped him. Right then, Castiel felt extremely mortal…human, even. It was unsettling, to say the least, and he had no idea what to do about it. He needed one of the Winchesters there to look at it and make sure it could be taken care of. His vision was swimming, and he closed his eyes to quell a sudden rush of nausea.

“That’s a nasty wound you’ve got there,” said a calm, amiable voice from above the angel. Castiel’s eyes shot open again. He hadn’t heard anyone walking through the sand and rocks to reach him.

“It is not… pleasant, no,” Castiel admitted, looking up to see the man towering above him. He had black, short hair and dark eyes. His skin was lightly tanned and his face was clearly in need of a shave, giving him a neglected appearance.

“May I look at it?” 

Castiel tilted his head, squinting against the glare of the setting sun. 

“Do you know how to treat it?” the angel asked.

“I’m a doctor,” the man explained, and Castiel nodded in return.

“Then I consent to letting you examine it. Just…please do be careful.” The doctor man nodded and kneeled down to look at the angel.

“My name is Jack,” the man supplied.

“I am Castiel.” 

The doctor poked lightly at parts of the bruised skin, and received a pained hiss in response. He studied the angel’s side for a moment longer before he sighed and pulled back. 

“Well, Castiel,” Jack sighed, rocking back on his heels, “it’s not as scary as it could be”–or as it was, Castiel supplied internally–“so I’m going to find something to bandage it up with. There should be something around here…”

He trailed off, rummaging through an open suitcase. He produced a washcloth and two long neckties and tied a makeshift bandage around the angel’s torso. 

“I don’t have antiseptic on me,” he apologized while he secured the ties. “Maybe we can dig some supplies out of the plane, but in the meantime, do your best to keep this clean. I saw you helping out earlier.” He gave one last tug and moved his hands away, apparently satisfied. “You had to have irritated this thing quite a bit, lifting and dragging and carrying people and plane parts around like that.”

“Yes, I suppose that that is true,” Castiel replied with a half-shrug-half-wince.

“Take it easy now, okay?” The doctor stood up and held out his hand to help Castiel to his feet. The angel bit back a groan as he rose again. He still couldn’t understand his sudden weakness.

“No more helping out like that tonight, Castiel. You’ve done a great job already. You deserve some rest.”  
Castiel nodded. Yes. Yes, that sounded like a good plan.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam jolted back to awareness to the feeling of someone cautiously tapping his shoulder. Someone was kneeling beside him. Panic and adrenaline shot through his veins and his eyes snapped open. Where was he? _Panic room. Church. Ruby. Lilith. Blood, Dean, more blood, then the blinding light and a feeling of burning and freezing all at once. Then the plane…_

Ah. That was it: the plane. The darkness that took him just as the plane started to go down. There was blue sky above him and sand beneath him. _Land_ , he thought, _we crashed and landed on a beach._ Relieved to have pieced the events together, he brought himself back into the current moment. The person kneeling beside his head was a woman. She was blond, young – maybe in her early twenties – and out of breath. She choked back sobs, trying hard to keep her composure while she watched the commotion unfolding further down the beach.

“Oh, good,” she sighed. “You’re alive. I was worried they’d put me by a dying man.”

“No,” Sam groaned as he sat up, “not dead quite yet.”

“I mean, I can see that now,” the woman mused. She had a thick Australian accent and a thin smile that seemed to be involuntarily shaking. Sam looked here over again and realized a new detail – from the disproportionate swell of her stomach, he could tell she was pregnant, and _very_ far along.

“I’m Sam.” The hunter held out his hand to her. She grinned wider and shook it.

“I’m Claire,” she replied. “Pleasure to meet you, despite the circumstances.”

“Are there enough people helping out?” Sam looked over the smoking metal and still-screaming chaos.

“Probably not,” she said. “If you can move around, you should go get people away from the crash site.”

Sam eyed her again as she looked blankly out at the ocean horizon. She wiped the corner of one eye, smudging her subtle makeup.

“You going to be alright by yourself?” Sam asked. Claire looked up at him with a half-smile and tired eyes.

“Yeah, think I will be…for now, at least.”

Sam nodded and stood up, brushing himself off before leaping right into action.

He had been moving his first person away from the still-intact part of the cabin when Dead had run up to him, looking for Castiel. Sam had blanked, realizing that he hadn’t seen the angel once in all of the wreckage. Before he had time to worry, Dean took off again, leaving Sam to help himself as well as the woman leaning on him. He shook it off, trusting his brother to find Castiel while he took care of things here, and continued making his way up the beach.

Nearly an hour had passed before Sam was told to stop looking for survivors. He was assigned to ripping clean shirts for bandages by a man claiming to be a doctor. Sam was glad to oblige, returning to his spot next to Claire with a pile of shirts. By that point, he wanted company – preferably living company. The pregnant woman smiled at him, much more composed than she had been previously, and offered to help out.

“You look like you know what you’re doing,” she commented as he ripped his fifth bandage, trying to strike up a conversation. He nodded.

“I kind of do, yeah.” He wasn’t about to tell her how regularly he did this, that he had probably stitched up more wounds than the doctor had. He _wasn’t_ about to complain how these were the worst kind of shirts to have on hand for bandages. He simply smiled instead.

“Soldier, then?” Claire asked. Sam furrowed his brow and looked at her, confused.

“Were you a soldier?” she clarified. Sam grimaced.

“Something like that, yeah.”

“American?”

“Yeah. I’m from Kansas.”

Claire laughed half-heartedly. “Like Clark Kent?”

Sam raised an eyebrow and responded with, “I didn’t think you’d know where Kansas was.”

“I grew up on comics! Superheroes were cool when I was little,” she shot back, bumping Sam’s arm with her fist. Claire giggled, and Sam smiled back at her. Their eyes lingered on each other for a moment before returning to their work.

“Look at me, buddyin’ up with you before I even know who you are,” Claire remarked. “Though I suppose nothing’s wrong with some jokes between strangers after your plane’s just crashed on a random beach in the Pacific.” She sighed again and looked forlornly down at her hands as she tore the fabric.

“Hey, desperate times,” Sam replied. “You could be running around screaming or catatonic right now. I’d say talking to someone is a pretty good way of coping. No one’s judging.” The woman smiled as she tore the last piece of fabric in her hand into a perfect strip.

“Ha! How’s that for unsteady hands?” she grinned.

“Great,” Sam replied, taking it from her and putting it with the rest. “I should get these over to that doctor.”

“Yeah,” Claire told him, “you should. Thanks for putting me to some use, mate. I needed it.”

Sam smiled, nodded, and walked back to where the shelters were being constructed. The moment he spotted the doctor, he quickened his stride to catch up with the other man. His feet sank and slid in the dry sand, and his legs felt unsteady, but he pushed forward as best he could. He was weak, and just kept getting weaker, his addiction starting to take its toll on his body already. Ruby was gone, and with her, his daily dose of demon blood. The urges were just starting to claw at his mind; his body was aching for it, but the adrenaline rush from the urgency of the situation kept him distracted enough. He hadn’t given it much thought for the majority of the morning, or afternoon, or whatever part of the day he had spent on the beach running around in the bright, hot sunlight.

“Hey – Sam, was it?” the doctor called out as he spotted the hunter.

“Yeah,” he said. “I've got those bandage strips you wanted.”

“Thanks so much,” the doctor mumbled, taking the strips of cloth from Sam and laying them down on top of a blanket - one of those too-soft, in-flight blankets for overnight flights. Sam was surprised any of those had avoided being burnt in the crash.

“These are actually... really great,” the doctor told him, looking up at the hunter; he was clearly impressed. “Could you possibly help me keep pressure on this guy's arm while I get some thread out?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure thing.”

The man on the ground was out cold, though he seemed to have no other injuries besides his left arm, which was mottled purple, black, blue, and various shades of red around the gash in his bicep. Sam wrapped his hands around the area and pressed down. He had done this more times than he'd like to think about, for both himself and Dean, and, considering how their luck had been going, it was a trend that would likely never stop.

Sam was, at least, thankful that he didn't have to patch up his brother this one time. Thankful that he didn't know the guy in front of him. Thankful this set of stitches wasn't for either of the Winchesters—that this didn't even seem to be their fault for once. He stopped his thoughts there, attempts at optimism ringing hollow. Sam sighed and increased pressure on the man's wound, because that was all he could do.

“How are you holding up, then?” the doctor asked him.

“I'm doing alright, actually.” It was less of a lie than usual.

The doctor shifted his weight, trying to thread the needle with unsteady hands.

“I never caught your name,” Sam said casually.

“Jack,” the doctor replied. He slipped the thread through the eye of the needle, finally, and let out the breath he had been holding.

“Jack!” Someone was shouting from across the crowded stretch of sand. “We need you over here!”

“Just a moment,” he called back. Stress showed clearly on his face as his eyes wandered to Sam and the injured man on the ground.

“I can get this guy’s wound fixed up, if you want, Jack,” Sam offered before he could think. “I’ve done this a hundred times before. Seriously.”

“Are you-“

“Not a doctor, not a nurse. Just experienced, okay?”

Jack eyed the hunter suspiciously.

“They might need you over there,” Sam reasoned, “and we don’t need anyone else dying today. I can handle this.”

Jack looked into Sam’s eyes for a moment, still uncertain. _Shit_ , Sam thought. _Spoke too soon. He’ll ask questions, we’ll waste time, and this guy might die with or without stitches in him._

“Okay, Sam,” Jack said hesitantly. “You get me if anything goes wrong, okay?”—he started to get up, then looked back to Sam again—“If it goes fine, you get me anyway.”

The hunter nodded, surprised.

“I’m trusting you.”

“You can count on me,” Sam assured him. The doctor continued to look at the injured man with a calculating stare.

“Go, Jack.” He blinked at Sam, nodded, and took off in the direction of the voice that had called to him earlier. Sam reassessed the man’s injury and immediately got to work.

Certainly, he knew this kind of thing too well, seemed too calm, and was too familiar with injuries; he would have to explain himself to Jack, eventually, of course. Nothing about this was going to be easy – the whole waiting for help thing – but Sam would be damned if he wasn’t going to put himself to use every chance that he got. Maybe he was worrying too much…he still couldn’t stop himself from doing so.

He didn’t let himself laugh at the irony of his brain’s word choice. _Damned_ …he could worry about the Apocalypse later.

The wounded man lying in front of him had a nasty gash across his torso, but it was no worse than what the hunter was used to seeing. The torn flesh was sewn up carefully and neatly within a few minutes. Sam wiped the majority of the blood off his hands and stood up, scanning the area for Jack. He spotted the black-haired doctor already approaching him, almost dragging his feet, clearly falling off his adrenaline high.     

“Hey, Sam,” he called out. “How’s your guy faring?” The doctor’s hands were clean, freshly washed, which made them contrast sharply with his bloodied shirt and soot-smudged face.

“Just fine,” Sam replied as the doctor came to a halt. “He’s still out cold, but he should be alright when he wakes up.”

Jack knelt down to look at the stitches. His eyebrows shot up and he turned to look at Sam.

“These are impeccably done, Sam,” Jack told him, clearly astonished. “You’ve really had no experience in the medical field?”

“Not… the professional field, no,” Sam admitted.

“Well, right now, as long as you’re helping, I don’t care how you learned all of this,” the doctor said with an exhausted sigh. “Thanks, man.”

“It’s no problem. Really.”

“I mean it.” Jack stood and shook the hunter’s hand.

“I’m glad to help,” Sam assured him. The doctor nodded and sighed again. Sam wanted to offer to make rounds for the man, though he had no idea if all of the survivors had been found yet. There could still be people trapped inside the middle section of the plane, Sam thought. Following the doctor’s troubled gaze, he realized Jack was thinking the same thing, and realized that there would be no rest in the other man’s near future. The hunter found himself grimacing at the sudden rush of sympathy he felt for Jack. They both felt obligated to help, trying to make up for being less-than-first-rate versions of themselves for the past few months. Of course, that might have just been Sam projecting his own feelings onto his new acquaintance.

Sam shook his head subtly as he thought to himself. There were more pressing things to focus on.

“We ought to move this guy closer to the shelters, if all this humidity decides to turn into rain,” Jack suggested, breaking the heavy silence.

“Good idea,” Sam agreed. “He definitely doesn’t have any broken bones or head trauma, and I think I can carry him over there.” Jack nodded, looking back up towards the small, flimsy shelters that had been set up less than an hour before.

“Just be careful,” the doctor said. I’m gonna go check further down the beach for any useful supplies.”

“I’ll see you around, then.” Sam hoisted the injured man up into his arms, trying hard not to disturb the new stitches.

“Sure thing. And, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

The hunter nodded an acknowledgement as the deadweight grew more and more difficult to hold up.

“I might need your help again, sometime.”

“I’ll be by the shelters, if you do,” Sam told him.

“Good,” Jack said with a light, apologetic smile. “Get that guy up the beach before I have to drag both of you there myself, alright? Wouldn’t do for you to wear yourself out so early by just standing there.” With that, the doctor turned and walked away. Sam also headed off, barely making it to the slanted beach before he had to set the injured man down. Sam collapsed alongside him, arms shaking. Jack was right; wearing himself out wouldn’t do any good if his help was needed later. Sam let his eyes drift shut.

He was asleep within minutes.

\-------------------------------        

He wanted some nice, hard liquor. That’s all that Dean could think about. Hell, he _needed_ some damn whiskey or bourbon or scotch or even piss-weak beer as long as it was _something._ He needed to drown himself in a drink for a little while, just so he could get his mind off all the plane bullshit and the Cas-is-angel-deaf-and-can’t-fly bullshit and the freaking Apocalypse bullshit. No one knew how long they would be stuck on the island, and, even just a few hours into their survival panic, everyone was getting restless. _When do we go home? When can we expect to get rescued? They had to have noticed that we’re all missing, by now_.

Dean sighed in frustration. There he was, leaning against a palm tree, watching the tide roll in and out, listening to the white noise and buzz of people talking, and doing absolutely nothing. His brain was turning in circles and his whole body felt on edge.

Something was wrong about all of this, but his mind just couldn’t focus enough to come up with any possible reasons for the plane crash. Dean Winchester, hunter, brother, rebel, prom dress for Heaven’s Number One Angel… was almost _calm._ This isolation made him so unexpectedly and unnaturally relaxed that it bothered him. He should be jittery, doing everything in his power to get off the damn island and go back to fixing the world, but for some reason all he could do was sit and stare at the technicolor sunset.

Well, one evening of rest might do him some good, Dean figured. And why the hell shouldn’t he get to enjoy just a few minutes’ worth of calm? _There are plenty of reasons,_ his brain immediately supplied, and he really wanted that drink again.

A strong smell of cigarette smoke wafted up from one of the shelters, a little less than halfway down the beach. The gray-white smoke drifted up and around the side of the tarps and metal scraps. Curious, Dean made his way down the beach towards the source of the smoke. Someone had managed to salvage some cigarettes. Someone else had a lighter. Someone _else_ had no one to talk to.

The blonde man who had been rounding up supplies was sitting in front of his makeshift shelter, smoking with a contemplative look on his face. Dean stood next to him, and the man looked up. A smile spread across his face, the cigarette dangling from his lips casually.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Dean replied, not making eye contact.

“Here, sit down,” the man said, smoke drifting out of his mouth. “I never caught your name, mister.”

“Dean,” the hunter supplied. “Dean Winchester.” There wasn’t really a point to using an alias with anyone, and using his own name was refreshingly easy.

“Dean,” the blonde echoed, smiling again. “Call me Sawyer.” He held out his hand and Dean shook it in greeting, then sat down to join him on the hot sand.

“Thanks again for grabbing that book,” Sawyer said. “I could use all the reading material available. It’s not like we know how long we’ll be here.”

“No problem,” Dean replied. “’S good you have a hobby.”  

Sawyer was looking Dean over; even though the hunter was still focused on the ocean horizon, he could still sense the blonde analyzing him. Dean let out a sigh and tried relaxing where he sat. Sawyer let out a smoky chuckle.

“You’re tuckered out there, soldier.”

Dean couldn’t help but crack a bitter smile. “I’ve needed a rest for a long time, I guess,” he admitted. He didn’t let himself think about how his life had gotten to the point where barely surviving a plane crash onto a mysterious island was “rest”.

“So have I, Dean Winchester. So have I.”

The two men looked out at the sunset for a long moment. Several smaller fires were being started around the different areas around the crash site, illuminating the rapidly darkening beach. Dean let his mind wander to Sam and Cas. He hadn’t seen Sam since the brief confirmation that his brother was alive. Hoping that was a good sign, Dean willed himself to relax. Sawyer was right – he was exhausted, and not just from running around all day after the plane crashed. Sure, it wasn’t the best timing or circumstances, but the Winchesters and their friendly neighborhood rebel angel deserved a bit of a break.

Dean suddenly sensed that he was being watched again; the hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he felt a phantom itch crawl up his shoulders. He looked over his right shoulder to see a familiar pair of slacks and the bottom of a tan trench coat. A sigh of relief escaped him, though he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath in the first place.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Sam told me to find you,” the angel stated.

“Damn, mister,” Sawyer cut in suddenly, “I didn’t notice you walk up on us.”

“Yeah, he does that,” Dean admitted. Then, to Castiel, “What’s Sammy need me for?”

“He has been helping the other survivors by setting up shelters. He has one for the three of us.”

Dean nodded.

“Alright. You tell him I’ll be there in a few minutes, okay?”

The hunter looked up to meet Castiel’s gaze. The poor guy looked even worse off than Dean.

“How about you sit down for a bit?” Dean suggested, patting the sand next to him. The angel studied the ground for a moment before silently joining the other two men. He sat down stiffly and stared out at the horizon, squinting with an unreadable expression.

Sawyer took another drag of his cigarette. The smoke drifted lazily through the air, appearing dark gray against the bright backdrop of the sunset. Castiel wrinkled his nose, but said nothing.

The three sat and gazed out across the ocean until the sun dipped below the red horizon. The cigarette and its stench had long since burnt out, and were replaced by the smells of burning wood and dry leaves. Nervous chatter, weeping, and crashing waves sounded faintly on the night air.

“Sam will be looking for us,” Castiel stated, breaking the near-silence.

“Yeah.” Dean groaned, standing up and brushing himself off. “Don’t want him worrying his overgrown head any more than he has to.”

“Hey. Dean, was it?” Sawyer said, ending with a yawn that he obviously tried to stifle. Dean nodded.

“If you see any other books or magazines or whatnot, I’d appreciate it if you’d send ‘em my way. When you’re done with them, of course.”

Dean gave the man a tired attempt of a smile and nodded again. Castiel stood up behind him, clearly trying to keep out of the hunter’s field of vision as he winced and rose shakily to his feet. Dean didn’t see, but Sawyer definitely did. The blonde eyed the angel, curious, but didn’t comment. He threw Cas a wink before smiling lopsidedly and staring at the hunter in front of him instead.

“Sure thing,” Dean replied. He stuck his hand out and Sawyer shook it. “And thanks for helping me find this guy earlier,” he added, jabbing a thumb at Castiel.

“I was wonderin’ if that was him,” Sawyer returned, smiling wider. “How’re you doing?”

“My condition is… much improved,” Castiel replied.

“That’s good, that’s good.” The blonde trailed off, looking like he was still analyzing the pair he had been sitting with for the past half-hour.

Dean cleared his throat. “My brother’s gonna get all freaked out if we don’t head back to the rest of the shelters soon, so, uh… see you around?”

“See you around.”

With that, Castiel led Dean back up the sandy beach to the few standing makeshift tents and shelters. There were all sorts of people already around them – sitting, pacing, sleeping, biting nails, holding each other as if they would just vanish if they let go. And then there was Sam, sitting by a small fire, staring into it blankly. As soon as they approached, he snapped out of his thoughts and looked up at them.

“I was beginning to think I’d have to come find you myself,” Sam commented. Dean sighed and sat down on the other side of the fire across from his brother.

“Well, whatever else happens, at least this place gets good sunsets,” Dean said with a wry smile. He glanced over at Cas, who refused to sit with them and had apparently decided to just stare into the woods behind the shelters. The guy had been acting strangely – even for his strange, angel self – since the crash. _Lack of Angel Radio must be messing with his head_ , Dean mused.

Castiel muttered something unintelligible.

“Sorry, didn’t catch that?” Dean said. The angel, instead of turning to face them and repeating himself as Dean expected him to, tensed visibly and continued his staring contest with the jungle. He slowly backed away from the side of their camp that was closest to the trees and the darkness lurking under their canopy.

“You okay there?” Sam asked, looking up at the angel. “Castiel?”

“How is that…” Cas mumbled, just loud enough for Dean to hear.

“What’s wrong, man?” Dean stood and cautiously approached the angel. Castiel’s eyes were wide and caught somewhere between shock and confusion.

“Cas, can you hear me?” The angel didn’t react when Dean rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Cas, dammit, say something.” Castiel still ignored him, but he began mouthing words silently. His eyes shifted across the tree line. As he exhaled, his silent words were raised to a whisper, it was clear that he was not speaking English. It was the same jumble of words repeating on loop.

“Is that… is that _Enochian_?” Sam asked, startled.

Dean listened closer to the strange words, frowning. “Probably,” he replied.

“Hey there, is everything okay?” A man approached and stepped into the firelight. He was bald and had a scar that ran from his forehead, over his eyebrow, skipping his eye, and continuing over his cheekbone. Dean recognized him from earlier – he had been sitting peacefully on the beach, even as chaos swirled around him. _Well, everyone deals with the experience of a plane crash differently, I guess_.

“I’m not sure,” Dean muttered. “I, uh, _think_ he’ll be okay…maybe…”

“Looks like a panic attack,” the man said, stepping closer. He appeared to be generally concerned about the still-unmoving angel. He looked Dean in the eyes with a clear air of caution about him.

“I’m John Locke.”

“Dean Winchester. This is my brother, Sam.” The other hunter nodded in greeting.

“His name’s Castiel,” Dean added, gesturing to the angel in the tan trench coat, who was still frozen stiff as a statue, except his darting eyes and shallow, quick breathing.

“Has he ever had a panic attack before?” John asked, circling around to be in Castiel’s peripheral vision.

Dean stopped himself from saying _He’s an angel, he’s like a billion years old, how would I-_ “Not that I know of, no,” Dean admitted. He tried squeezing Cas’s shoulder to elicit a reaction, and sighed when he had no such luck.

“Castiel, what’s wrong?” John said, very calmly and clearly. Castiel’s muttering broke for an instant, then started up again, more audible this time. Dean and Sam exchanged a glance. That was _definitely_ Enochian.

“My name is John Locke,” the man continued, his voice absolutely level and cool. Castiel blinked.

“I’ve never seen something like this happen before,” John admitted.

“Neither have we,” Sam replied.

John tried again. “Castiel, are you alright?”

“C’mon, man,” Dean whispered, giving the angel’s shoulder a small shake. The angel whispered something back, and this time, it wasn’t in the loop of words he had been repeating.

“In English, Cas?” The angel turned suddenly to look Dean dead in the eye, causing the hunter to stumble backwards in surprise. Castiel’s eyes were wide and devoid of expression as he continued to stare Dean down.

“Something more intelligible, at least?” the hunter suggested, unable to stifle the fear that was creeping into his voice. Cas muttered again.

“Sh’ma… y’srael adonai… eloheinu…” was all that any of them could catch.

“That’s Hebrew,” Sam offered, “right?”

“Yeah. It sure is.” John’s expression darkened.

Dean glanced back and forth between them. “What’s it mean?”

“It’s a common, powerful prayer,” the bald man explained, looking rather unsettled, “roughly translating to ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One’. Some Jews say it three times a day. It’s basically the greatest declaration of one’s faith in God.”

“That ain’t English, Cas,” Dean murmured, unable to break eye contact with the terrified angel.

“And the smoke of… their torment… ascendeth up forever…” Castiel whispered. A visible shudder ran through his whole body, and the glaze seemed to disappear from his eyes as they rolled back in his head and his legs buckled. Dean caught him before he fell and carefully set the limp angel on the ground.

“And that was…” Dean asked.

“Weird?” Sam suggested. His brother shrugged and nodded, apprehension twisting in his gut again.

“Sounded like a bible verse to me,” John commented.

“So Cas is suddenly back on the prayer train again?” Dean asked no one in particular. Sam opened his mouth to respond when a terrible noise erupted from the jungle. All three men looked up to see trees whipping around and other survivors running away from the tree line as fast as they could.

Castiel’s eyes flew open at the noise, and he began whispering the looped Enochian again, instead of the Sh’ma or the random English verse. Dean knelt back down next to the angel. He had known it was ridiculous to even _consider_ the idea that this island would have nothing unnatural about it or anything out of the ordinary (for someone who wasn’t a Winchester, that is). Curiosity may have killed the cat, but optimism killed the hunter.

“Castiel!” Dean exclaimed, snapping his fingers in front of the angel’s face. Cas took a deep, shuddering breath. As he released it, two things happened at once: the angel blinked and shuddered again, suddenly snapping out of his trance…and the creature (or _whatever_ it had been) left, retreating towards the center of the island leaving the sound of crashing trees in its wake. Dean, Sam, and Locke shared a collective sigh of relief.

“Dean?” Castiel croaked. “What… why am I lying on the ground?”

The hunter let out a breathy, exhausted laugh before replying, “Cas, I have no fucking clue.”

He stared at the now-still tree line and Castiel followed his gaze, still confused. Dean shook his head, repeating to himself:

“I have _no_ fucking clue.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Sh'ma is also commonly believed to be the prayer that one should say before one dies...heh...just thought I'd give you all that spooky fact.  
> Sorry that I didn't get this up any sooner. I have been frenzied, as of late. The next chapter...I can't guarantee when it will be up, but it will (hopefully) not take 3 to 4 weeks, this time. Sorry 'bout that.  
> Also: if you all have any suggestions, please, PLEASE go ahead and comment or message me or something. I'd love to get any thoughts on where this should go. I'm going with the flow right now, so any blip of inspiration is helpful!  
> Thanks again to my loverly beta/editor: http://snap-and-loopin.tumblr.com/


	3. Chapter 3

            Castiel awoke the next morning with a start. It seemed that, at some point, he had fallen asleep, and _stayed_ asleep throughout the night. That was more than a little disconcerting. Angels didn't need to sleep, even when in a human vessel, and this was the second time in the past couple of days that Castiel had drifted off.

            The last time he woke up, he was strapped into the smoking wreckage of an airplane. At least this time, his surroundings were marginally less disastrous.

            “Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” Dean's voice said. The hunter approached the small campsite, giving Castiel a forced smile. “You think you can come and help me move stuff around? We're still making shelters.”

            “...Yes, Dean. I think I can help.” The angel rose unsteadily to his feet.

            “Alrighty, then. Follow me.” Dean took off in the direction of the fuselage, the tattered angel trailing behind.

            Abruptly, the hunter stopped and turned to face Castiel. “You don't need food, do you?”

            “My vessel does not require sustenance,” the angel reminded him. “I do not feel hunger, Dean.”

            “I know, I know. I just thought maybe, now that you're sleeping, you might need food too. Just a thought. Never mind.”

            The two took off down the beach again. Dean looked exhausted, Castiel thought, like he was still running on adrenaline alone. He wondered if the hunter had slept at all. Dean's arms and legs were dusted with light sand, dirt and blood still caked under his fingernails and his hair stuck up in odd directions in a few places like he’d been carding it with his hands. Shadows hung starkly under and around his eyes, but his instinctual drive didn't seem hampered.

            Minus the sand, Castiel mused, it was a common look for the hunter. He wondered what the brothers had been like—what they _could_ have been like before the angel had dragged Dean out of Hell and into the onset of the Apocalypse. Their accidental landing on this island could almost be considered a vacation for the two men. Already, after only a day, they seemed different – not necessarily more relaxed, just more... free.

            “Castiel?” a voice called from further up the beach. Both he and Dean turned to see Jack, the doctor, walking down the sandy slope towards them.

            “Yes?”

            “I was wondering how you were doing,” the doctor said. He couldn't have gotten more than a minute of sleep in the past night, Castiel concluded. The man's soul was strong, but weary and distracted. He clearly wasn't used to the exhaustion the way Dean was, and his adrenaline rush had long since run out.

            “Dean, right?” Jack addressed the elder Winchester, before Castiel had gathered a response. The hunter nodded, and Jack continued: “Your brother – Sam – said you might be able to help us out with some injuries from the crash. Do you think you'd be able to meet me at the shelter up there?”

            “Yeah, sure,” Dean replied. “Is Sam there?”

            “He might still be. He offered to work on shelters, though, so-”

            “Alright,” Dean told him. “I'll help you some.”

            “Castiel?” the doctor prompted, turning his attention back to the angel.

            “I am doing well. Thank you for the concern.”

            “You probably shouldn't be doing heavy lifting just yet.”

            “I'm... fairly certain that I will be fine.”

            “Castiel, which one of us is a doctor in medicine?”

            The angel furrowed his brow. “You.” Obviously.

            “Then please trust my professional opinion.”

            Castiel hesitated, then nodded in surrender. He decided, for now, that it would be best not to argue with the human and to keep up an appearance of normalcy. Dean was looking at him questioningly, and Castiel met his gaze with a deadpan expression. He noticed, absently, that Dean's freckles were already more prominent, his face tanning in the sun after only a day's worth of work. He chose not to answer the unspoken question of _Are you okay?_ or perhaps it had been more of a _What is he talking about?_

“I think that some people are sorting luggage,” Jack told them. “If you really want to help, they could probably use you.” Castiel nodded again, curtly.

            “We need to get back to the tree line, though. Dean, just follow me. I'll show you what I've got set up.”

            “Lead on, then,” Dean replied, and with a last troubled glance back at Castiel he followed the doctor towards the makeshift medical bay. Castiel caught himself sighing – such a strangely human behavior – and shook his head. He had spent far too much time on Earth with the Winchesters; he was starting to pick up their casual habits. As much as Castiel appreciated humans, he didn't exactly want to be _like_ them. Free will, morals, emotion, and familial connections were all well and good, but sighing?

            He muttered a curse in Enochian.

            “So, Castiel,” a voice spoke up behind him. John Locke, the man he had met the night before, approached the angel.

            “Yes?”

            “Are you a man of faith?”

            Castiel frowned. “What – why do you ask?” Sam had talked to him about not mentioning anything about the apocalypse, or saying their true reasons for being on the airplane, or revealing that he was an angel of the Lord possessing a mortal vessel, or anything else that might... _confuse_ the other people on the island. The man's question startled him.

            “You were talking during that episode you had last night,” Locke explained. “I was just curious.”

            “I consider myself one of strong faith, yes.” Castiel hesitated before asking, “What did I say?”

            “You recited some verses from the Bible and the Torah. There was something else in a language I didn't recognize, too.”

            “Ah,” the angel said simply. He looked down to see that the man was carrying something: a small wooden box, with something that rattled around inside of it when it moved. He tilted his head, curious.

            “What do you have there?”

            “Backgammon,” Locke said. “Have you ever played it?”

            “Yes,” Castiel replied, a small smile breaking out on his face, “though it has been a very long time.”

            Locke smiled back. “Would you care to play?”

            Castiel thought for a moment. Jack didn't want him irritating his slowly-healing wound by making shelters, and in all honesty the luggage sorting did not seem like an important task. He nodded. Locke sat down in the sand and opened the board. The angel knelt down across from him.

            “How are you not burning up in that trench coat, Castiel?” Locke asked as he set up the game pieces.

            Castiel shrugged. “Temperature has never affected me much.”

            “I see.” Locke nodded at the board. “White chips or black chips, then?”

            “I suppose I will take white,” Castiel replied, “since you've already set up the board that way.”

            “Alright, then.” Locke rolled the dice: a one and a three. “Not a lucky start,” he remarked as he passed the dice over to Castiel, who rolled a four and a six. The angel took the first turn.

            “So, may I ask what you were flying to California for?” Locke said, watching Castiel's hands carefully move the white ships across the board.

            “There... there was a last-minute flight change that Sam, Dean, and I had to take. There were... urgent matters we had to attend to,” Castiel recited his prepared story cautiously (technically, Sam had been the one to fabricate the explanation, but Castiel had practiced saying it in his mind to make it sound more original).

            “'Urgent matters'?” Locke echoed. The angel kept his eyes fixed on the backgammon board as Locke rolled the dice.

            “A family matter of mine.” It was true enough. Lucifer's rising from the cage _was_ a family matter. The angels would divide their forces in heaven, and each one of them was a sibling to Castiel. There would be those who supported the apocalypse, who fueled the war, and there would be a few like Castiel who would try to stand up against supposed destiny.

            Castiel knew that he liked humanity. He understood why his father seemed to appreciate them so. He did not want to see the world and its creatures that had been so painstakingly built up suddenly destroyed in one battle between his brothers. He... didn't want the Winchesters to be alone in their resistance against the workings of heaven and hell. The angel of Thursday had become an advocate for free will and he couldn't even begin to fathom when, how, or why.

            “I see,” Locke said, breaking his stream of thought. Castiel rolled the dice.

            “Why were you flying, then?”

            “Heading home. I was vacationing in Australia – exploring, I guess you'd say.” The angel nodded, taking this opportunity to study the man in front of him. John Locke was physically fit, but had skinny legs, like he wasn't used to hiking or running or any form of difficult exercise. A light gash, probably from the crash, had scabbed over on his face, and his blue-green eyes were bright and intense as he studied the game board. He looked happy, despite the current situation; definitely the happiest of any of the survivors Castiel had seen. The angel couldn't help but be amused by the idea of this. So, John Locke liked adventure and exploration. A plane crashing on a deserted island left most of the passengers terrified, traumatized, and weary. Meanwhile, here this man was, sitting on the unfamiliar beach and playing a board game, looking like a child on a camping trip. It seemed as though he enjoyed the unknown.

            Castiel passed the dice back to Locke.

            “May I ask you an odd question?” the man said suddenly, rolling the dice around in his hand.

            “Certainly, though I can't guarantee a desired answer.”

            “That's alright.” Locke rolled: double fours. “I was just wondering: is English a secondary language for you?”

            Castiel blinked. Sam hadn't said anything about censoring his answer to a question like that. He didn't see how there could be harm in it. The angel hesitated, then replied with a simple “Yes.”

            “How many languages can you speak?” the man asked, staring at his chips on the board, contemplating his next move. Castiel watched him, meanwhile, observing his thought process.

            “...I am more fluent in some than others,” Castiel admitted. Technically, he could understand and speak any human language that he wished, but his vessel occasionally limited his abilities. More often than not, “holy” languages were his strong points.

            “But you can speak more than English and Biblical Hebrew?”

            “Yes. Some Latin, Greek, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Etruscan, Enochian, Korean, Sanskrit, Sumerian, Yoruba, Navajo, English, and Hebrew. I know pieces of others.”

            Locke raised his eyebrows. “Do you work for the UN or something?”

            Castiel gave him an almost-smile. “Or something.”

            Locke stared contemplatively back at him.

            “...You said Enochian?” Castiel nodded. “That's one I don't recognize.”

            “It is not common. A holy language.” Castiel watched placidly as Locke set two of his pieces by one of the angel’s single chips, sending it to the middle of the board. He resisted releasing a sigh as he realized that he wouldn't be able to move next turn; one sigh was enough human behavior for one morning.

            “So,” the man said, “traveling across the Pacific Ocean with two friends, last-second because of family affairs, Castiel No-Last-Name finds himself unexpectedly playing a game of backgammon with one John Locke.” He laughed quietly. Castiel studied him curiously as he continued, “This island... there's something strange about it, don't you think? Something... off?”

            “I agree. It feels unnatural.”

            “I'm glad I'm not the only one, then.” Locke looked Castiel directly in the eyes, and for some reason, the angel was unsettled. But Locke smiled warmly, and Castiel returned his attention to the backgammon board, his head tilting to the side as he picked up the dice.

            “I am glad, as well,” he admitted. He rolled the dice. One and one – snake eyes.

            And so they played until the sun was directly overhead.

            John Locke won the game.

 

\---

 

            Sam was tired. His hands were getting too shaky to stitch up wounds and he had to blink constantly to keep the heat from lulling him back to sleep. In short, the younger Winchester felt awful.

            Dean came up the beach with Jack, marching across the loosely packed, sandy slope and slipping backwards slightly with every step. The two were silent as they approached. Sam blinked hard, doing his best to look alert. He waved at his brother and received a half-smile in reply.

            “Hey, Sammy,” Dean said as he stopped beside Sam's current patient.

            “Don't call me Sammy, Dean,” he mumbled half-heartedly.

            “You know you love it,” his brother grinned, ruffling the younger man's long hair obnoxiously. Sam sighed.

            “Can you stitch up the cut on the woman's arm for me?”

            “Course I can,” Dean replied. “Give me some of that alcohol to wash my hands with.”

            “Don't drink it,” Sam said lightly as he passed the small bottle of liquor to his brother. Dean rolled his eyes as he sat down. He looked carefully over the scared-looking woman in front of him and smiled at her. Sam couldn't help but feel pleased at the idea of his big brother smiling so genuinely at a stranger. Maybe he had managed to influence Dean a little, after all.

            “Right, looks like I'm taking care of you now,” he told her, still with a friendly smile. “I'm Dean, Sam's brother. He probably already told you that this is gonna hurt, but it won't take long, so I want you to try and relax. If it hurts too much, tell me and I can stop for a bit until you feel like continuing, 'kay?”

            “You've done this before, right?” the woman asked, her voice cracking a bit halfway through.

            “Yep,” Dean replied. He tugged at Sam's shirtsleeve and pointed to an old, raised, even scar before the younger Winchester could protest. “See that? Did that about four months ago. Better than I've gotten from trained professionals in emergency rooms, if I do say so myself.” He looked into the woman's eyes again and asked, “You trust me?”

            “Yeah... yeah, I guess I do.”

            “Awesome.” Dean splashed a small amount of the alcohol on his hands and on the cut. The woman's face screwed up in pain, but she kept quiet. Sam handed his brother the needle and some black thread from the sewing kit, and watched him thread it with a practiced hand.

            “Hey, Sam?” Jack said quietly to his left. The hunter looked up and nodded to the doctor, who beckoned him away from Dean and the woman. As they walked to the shade of another palm tree, Jack spoke up.

            “You ought to rest a bit, Sam.”

            “I have a couple more hours of work left in me, Jack,” the hunter protested. “Really, I'll be fine.” Jack slowed to a halt in the shadow of the tree line and turned to face Sam.

            “Sam, these people will still need medical attention later. Dean can take care of them for a while, okay? You've done a fantastic job and deserve a break.”

            “No, Jack, honestly-” The doctor rested his hand on Sam's shoulder and glanced up to look him dead in the eye.

            “Sam, you're not getting out of this; you're resting and that's that.” Sam didn't reply, so Jack continued, “I'm sure that your brother would agree with me. I can ask him, if you'd like me to-”

            “No,” Sam interrupted quickly. “That's alright. I'll... I'll just go lie down for a bit.”

            “Hey, Sam?” Jack stopped him by tightening his grip on the hunter's arm. Sam blinked away the dry feeling in his eyes and suppressed a shudder.

            “Are you sure you're alright? You look a little under the weather.”

            He _felt_ under the weather. The tremors were getting worse, his head was pounding, and there was a constant itch that seemed to be running through his blood-

            _Shit. No, no, no. I look fine. I am fine. There's important work to do here, I'm not letting that get in the way._ Sam hesitated a moment too long. Jack pressed the back of his hand to the hunter's forehead, and it took all the willpower he had not to recoil.

            “I'm fine, Jack,” Sam insisted. “I'm just a bit tired. You're right.”

            “Sam, it's okay to tell me if you're not feeling well. That's kind of my job.”

            “I'm... I just need to relax for a bit, I guess.” Jack frowned, but nodded to the taller man and patted his shoulder before letting him go. Sam resisted sighing in relief as he began his walk back to the shelters. It hadn't even been two days, but every waking moment meant less demon blood coursing through his veins, and he was only going to keep feeling worse. Trapped on an island with a group of injured, traumatized strangers and not a single demon in sight – a year or two ago, that would have been a blessing. Now... not so much.

            Thinking about demon blood, of course, made him think of Ruby. _Ruby._ He shook his head, sitting down inside the shelter he had put together the night before. _I was so damn blind._ But the worst part was, even after the church, even with every memory tainted by her betrayal, he still _missed_ her. Even past the blood cravings, he felt hollow.

            Sleep crept up on him unexpectedly. His dreams were, unsurprisingly, of the church. Of Ruby and Castiel and Dean and Lilith's screams and a blinding white light and-

            Sam woke up with a start. His heart pounded in his chest so violently that he could swear it would be audible to anyone nearby. He lay panting in the sand and stared at the sky outside the rickety shelter. Rain poured down from thick, gray clouds above. Sam let his head rest on a wadded-up airplane blanket next to him, shifting his long body around so it wouldn't be twisted as awkwardly as it had been while he slept.

            The soft percussion of the raindrops on the roof of the shelter helped soothe the hunter's nerves. White noise drowned the chaos that swirled inside his head. The apocalypse was coming, heaven's number-one enemy had risen from Hell, Dean and Castiel were stuck with him on an island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, and it was all utterly and undeniably his fault. No matter what Dean tried to say to console him, _he_ had been the idiot this time. This wasn't a petty or fixable mistake; this wasn't selling his soul. This was condemning the world to torment and destruction with no guarantee that heaven would even win the battle, in the end.

            He knew that dwelling on it now would accomplish nothing.

            Sam sighed heavily and tried to relax back into his reclined sprawl. Sleep slipped over him much more slowly, this time around, and when it finally came, the dreams stayed away.

 

\---

 

Two days earlier

 

            _Turbulence. Sam scoffed inwardly. He looked over at his brother who was, thankfully, sound asleep despite the rocking and shaking of the airplane. Castiel was slouched in his seat, also appearing to be asleep. The angel's head rested on Dean's shoulder; Sam smiled at this. After what had happened, he was amazed that any of them could sleep. He was more amazed that he could smile, really. They deserved the rest, and if it took flying on an airplane over the Pacific, so be it._

_The three of them had been teleported into the airplane while it was still over land and had witnessed the terrible, white beam of light shooting up out of the church they had just been standing in. That was the first bout of turbulence. Amidst the confusion, they suddenly found themselves on_ another _plane. This, as Sam discovered, was flight 815, an Oceanic Airlines flight over the Pacific Ocean, almost halfway around the world._

_Sam was the only one who couldn't manage to fall asleep on the plane. He was far too agitated. Turbulence jarred the plane again, and Sam glanced out the window to see blue skies and white, lofty clouds. There was no visible reason for the disturbance, but Sam tried to brush off the thought. He instead shifted his focus to the people sitting in front of him and up a couple of rows, since they were the only ones talking. A woman and a man. The man seemed to be making a smug comment to the woman, who didn't seem impressed. She said something back to him, and the conversation picked up. Sam couldn't distinctly hear the two of them, but it was something to keep him interested, nonetheless._

_Suddenly, the airplane gave a huge shake and shudder. Masks dropped down from the compartments overhead. Gasps and exclamations of shock and worry shot out from the passengers around him. Sam snatched the mask from where it dangled in front of his face. After snapping his own over his nose and mouth, he nudged Castiel and Dean in an attempt to wake the two of them up. The angel stirred, but didn't wake. The airplane jumped and shook again, and the cries from the passengers became a cacophony of frantic shouting barely muffled by the oxygen masks._

_Though Dean remained unresponsive, Castiel woke up quickly the second time Sam shook his shoulder. Sam slipped the mask over the confused angel's face (who knows if he actually needed to breathe but that wasn't important right now) and gestured for him to do the same for Dean. Castiel stared at the younger hunter with a blank expression before doing what he'd been told. Dean still slept, which would have worried Sam if a part of the airplane hadn't picked that time to break off. Castiel stared straight ahead, unblinking and unmoving._

_The other half of the plane broke off._

If there was ever a time to pray _, Sam thought,_ it would be now _. He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the armrests on his seat. The change in pressure made his ears pop so violently they were probably bleeding. Panic sent adrenaline rushing through his veins, but all it did was make him more hyper-aware of how he couldn't_ do _anything._

_Castiel said something, but Sam couldn't hear him over the blast of air through the cabin or the roar of his own blood rushing in his head. Something – probably a loose piece of luggage – fell from above and hit him in the side of the head. A sharp buzzing joined the other noises, and black spots bloomed in his vision. Desperately, Sam tried to blink it away. Everything dulled and his limbs felt heavy; his grip on the chair loosened and everything went black, fading out like the end of a movie clip._

 

_\---_

 

Present

 

            “Sunbathing? Really?”

            The blonde girl had been lying on a towel in the sand, strangely content in the middle of the crash zone. She squinted up at Dean.

            “Yeah,” she replied, pushing her sunglasses up off her face. She braced herself up on her elbows and looked Dean up and down.

            “People must've been finding their luggage, huh?” Dean commented with his best charming smile. The woman was already tan, the dusting of sand light against her arms and long legs. She was an odd sight, glamorous swimsuit better fitted for a resort than for an unknown island in the middle of nowhere. Sam had told Dean to take a break from his impromptu job as a medic, claiming that he had already done enough; and what better way to take a break than chatting up a pretty lady on the beach?

            “I found mine,” she said, amused. “What's your name?”

            “Dean.”

            “Nice to meet you, Dean. I'm Shannon.” She smiled back at him and slid her sunglasses back onto her face. “Did my brother send you over here to talk me into doing something, or are you just stopping to talk out of the kindness of your heart?”

            “I don't know what you're talking about. Just thought you looked lonely out here.”

            Her smile grew. “Well then, why don't you sit down, if you're not so busy?”

            Dean sat beside her, but instead of looking at the blonde next to him, he stared off at the horizon. Waves undulated on the water's surface, murky from the earlier rainstorm. The sky had opened up and unleashed a ridiculous downpour, then had stopped like someone up in Heaven just decided to shut off a giant sky faucet.

            _Woah, nope, don't think about that_ , Dean reprimanded his brain. He scoffed inwardly, _Heaven._

            “So,” Shannon started, breaking the silence. “Where're you from? America, I'm guessing.”

            “Yeah,” Dean replied. “You too, right?” Shannon hummed and nodded.

            “How long until we get picked up, do you think? Someone has to know we went down.”

            Dean turned his head to look at her again. She was looking off at the same spot he had been, as if she was trying to figure out what was so interesting. He let a sigh escape before he could stop it, and Shannon looked back to him.

            “I really don't know. I don't know anything about planes or rescue missions or anything.” The two sat in silence for a moment, lost in their own thoughts; Dean's were along the lines of _This is why I hate plane— hate flying_. The waves crashed roughly against the shore, helping to drown out the continuous sounds of distress from the other survivors along the beach.

            “If no one shows up soon, though,” Dean added, “we'll have to move off the beach to find water and better cover.”

            “But...” Shannon trailed off, obviously trying to choose her words carefully before she continued. Another moment of quiet white noise passed.

            “But what?” he prompted.

            “What about that... that _thing_ we saw shake the trees a bunch? Whatever it was, it seemed strong enough to snatch up a person.”

            “Well, we're not just gonna up and move in all at once. And maybe that thing is smaller than we think. I don't know. But hey, we'll probably get rescued before we really have to worry about moving the group.”

            This, Shannon seemed to accept. She sighed and relaxed back onto the towel. She acted as if crashed onto a deserted island was just an inconvenience, a blip in her travel plan. Dean glanced over at her again. Yeah, she was pretty smokin', but all Dean could think on this was how Sam would give him hell if he got caught hitting up random girls when there was still so much work to be done.

            “It's been nice chatting,” Dean said as he stood up, “but I think I'd better get back to work.”

            “Alright,” the blonde replied, nonchalant. “See ya 'round, Dean.”

            The hunter returned to his post at the medical station that Jack had set up. Earlier that afternoon, Jack and two others had gone on an expedition into the jungle to find the other parts of the plane. They had left before the rainstorm and would probably just look like disappointed, drowned cats when they returned, tired, soaked, and grumpy. Dean sighed at the thought. He doubted they would have much luck finding pieces of the plane, but maybe they would find something useful on the island - a transceiver, a lost village, a source of fresh water. Anything would be better than seeing them come back empty-handed with less hope than before.

            Dean squatted down beside a man who had a large piece of shrapnel sticking out of him to change his makeshift bandage for a new one. The first time he had seen the guy, Dean did a double-take. He looked like he could have been a relative of the sheriff Azazel possessed a few years back. Sam's reaction had been similar, though he was quick to point out the clear differences between the vessel and the injured man Jack was treating. It had set them on edge, though, a nagging and unsettled feeling that the relief didn't quite wash away.

            Once he had the bandage changed, Dean suddenly found that there was nothing to do. It was an abrupt and alien feeling. He immediately itched to move, to lift some rubble out of the way or do some scouting or construct a shelter – _anything_. He already regretted his decision to take a break; at this point he was running on fumes and pure instinct, and if he stopped moving he started crashing. The sudden lack of a clear task was almost eerie.

            “Guess it's just you and me, buddy,” Dean mumbled to the injured man. The demon dead-ringer didn't reply, and Dean yawned, feeling the exhaustion come over him slowly but surely. He scanned over the beach, hoping he'd see something interesting. Contributing to the luggage-sorting mess was a terrible idea, and most everyone else was just sitting around or fixing up shelters that had been upset by the earlier storm.

            He squinted at a few figures in the distance, who seemed to be occupied with... playing a game? Two figures were sitting across from each other, intent on something between them. One was the bald man from the night before (John Locke, was it?), while the other was wearing a very familiar trench coat. Another figure was walking towards the pair, clutching what might have been a small book in her right hand. She had wavy blond hair and a noticeably round belly.

            _Pregnant?_ Dean wondered. Well, there wasn't really anything else she could be, unless she was hiding a pillow under her shirt.

            _One tough girl,_ he thought, watching her stride slowly but confidently over to John and Castiel. _That's gotta be stressful as_ hell.

            “Hey, Dean?” The hunter glanced over his shoulder to see a brunette woman covered in splotches of dried mud approaching him.

            “Who's askin'?”

            “Kate.”

            Dean remembered – Jack and Kate had struck up something of a survival-situation friendship in the few hours before they had gone into the jungle; the group had been made up of her, Jack, and the blonde guy. They must have just returned.

            Kate was nice-looking. Like, _really_ nice-looking, and maybe that's just where his mind was after seeing Shannon in her spangly bikini, but it stood out to him now. Kate made tired and mud-spattered look good. Her eyes didn't show any fatigue, though; they had a sharp, cold glint, like the dangerous aura of a wolf or coyote or something. Dean liked dangerous territory. Apparently his new type was strong-willed, mysterious women on deserted, equally mysterious islands.

            Dean cleared his throat.

“Yeah. I'm Dean,” he told her.

            “Jack wanted an update on this...guy.” Kate trailed off at the end, looking at the unconscious man next to her with an odd look on her face. She was concerned, but not like an average person would be for a stranger. Her brow was furrowed and one side of her face looked tense, like she was holding back a frown.

            “Do you know him?” Dean asked before he could stop himself.  

            “Not... not really. He sat next to me is all,” she replied, not so much as looking at Dean. “How is he doing?”

            “About as well as a guy with a hunk of metal sticking out of him can do, in these circumstances. Which is, though I hate to say it, not that great. There's not much I can do, at this point, besides waiting for rescue. He'd almost definitely bleed out if we tried to mess with the shrapnel.”

            Kate sighed and sat down next to him. Dean raised his eyebrow questioningly, but avoided her gaze when she turned to face him again. There was something about her, though he couldn't quite pin it down. Something... odd. Dean figured that as long as she was acting friendly and helpful, he wouldn't worry much about it.

            Not _too_ much.

            “Anything exciting going on down at the beach?” he asked, in an attempt to strike up a conversation. Kate kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, out at the distant waves, and replied, “Unfortunately, yes.”

            “Ooh. Not the good kind of exciting, I take it?”

            “No, not really.” She gave him an odd look. There was a beat of silence.

            “What's up, then?”

            “A kid named Walt found some handcuffs.” She didn't seem as bothered by this as Dean would have expected, just tired. Dean, on the other hand, could tell she didn't mean the fluffy pink kind, which made them a cause for concern.

            “What, so there was an air marshal on the flight or something?”

            “Some people seem to think that, some think one of us must be a criminal or something... we don't really know. Frankly, I don't care as long as everyone's helping out and being as patient as they can stand to be. A criminal, a lawman, I don't really care, as long as he or she isn't the one who downed the plane.”

            “There's a marshal on most flights though, right?” Dean suggested. “I mean, I'm no frequent flier, but I think that's how it works.”

            “I guess you're right,” Kate said, as if she hadn't even thought of that. “I just feel bad for Sayid. He's getting bad review from a few people because of how he looks and talks.”

            Dean nodded in understanding. “I can imagine.”

            “He seems nice enough, though. Pretty smart, too. He doesn't seem malicious enough to want to down an airplane for his own pride and glory,” Kate explained. “I've only spoken with him a little bit, but he and Jack get along and I guess, for whatever reason, that's good enough for me.

            “He offered to fix a transceiver we found, too,” she added. Dean turned to her, surprise clear on his face. So they had found other things from the crash, after all. And a transceiver was a huge find. He made a sound of acknowledgment and hoped he didn't sound too excited. Kate nodded and looked down at her hands. She began trying to pick the dirt and mud off her fingernails as it dried. Dean felt a smile creep over his face. She reminded him a bit of Lisa; a tough vibe, but the soft outer shell of someone who clings to forgiveness or-

            Dean almost physically shook his head to get rid of that thought. Why the hell was he jumping to conclusions, building her up in his mind? She was a woman on the same strange island as him, one of the few, but he certainly wasn't going to start thinking of her like that. Especially not comparing her to Lisa, or Cassie, or... any of them. He had to keep his head in the game. He couldn't get distracted by her tousled brown hair or her defined arm muscles or her interesting eye color or her relaxed ease while she spoke with him or the fact that her smile was probably heart-melting under that hard mask and Dean would really like to see if the tough-girl look was just a cover, after all, or if she was really a strong-independent-woman-who-don't-need-no-man type deep down, too, and-

            _Damnit, Dean! Snap out of it._ He did actually physically shake his head this time. Kate was pretty, yeah, but they were in a survival situation. This wasn't a hunt, they didn't have a car and roads to travel and hotels to pull into. Thinking that way would only get him into trouble here.

            Plus, he didn't think he could stand the bitchface Sam would pull if he couldn't keep it in his pants until they were rescued.

            Kate had said something to him.

            “Hm?”

            “I said, is Sam your brother?”

            “Oh, yeah.” Dean fumbled over the answer. “Why?”

            “I just noticed you two were around each other a lot and knew the same kind of stuff about emergency medical care and shelter-making. I couldn't tell if you were friends or brothers.”

            “Yeah. Sam's my younger brother.”

            “And who's the guy in the trench coat?”

            “A friend of ours,” he explained. “We were going with him on the flight, had some family business of his to take care of. Poor guy doesn't have many friends, these days.”

            “Well, then it's a good thing you two are there for him.” Kate looked once more at the injured man in front of them, then over to where Castiel was still sitting with Locke. She continued, “Why doesn't he have many friends, though? He seems strange, but he doesn't seem like a bad person.”

            “His family is full of soldier-types,” Dean explained easily. It was simple enough as long as he left out the whole _oh yeah, and he's an angel of the Lord_ bit, really. “There's a big, unhappy cycle of obedience and power goin' through that family tree, and Cas just wants out. Unfortunately, that's not exactly an option he's able to take.”

            “I see,” Kate said, deadpan. “I get the whole family-difficulties thing. He's different, though.” Dean tensed at this. He had to force himself to _chill the fuck out_ because there was no way she meant anything in the supernatural sense.

            “Yeah,” he admitted. “He's a... 'different' kind of guy, I guess.”

            “Not a bad thing, though.”

            “Not at all.” Dean smiled a little.

            “Actually, it's pretty nice, to tell the truth.”

            The silence was comfortable this time. Dean didn't know why he felt the need to tell Kate any of this, but there was little harm it could do. It was nice to have an angel on the shoulders of good ol' Team Free Will. It sure as hell made the whole kicking-destiny-in-the-ass thing seem a little more possible, at any rate. Not bad at all.

            Dean and Kate sat and observed the people on the beach for a few minutes before the hunter focused his attention back on the sheriff-guy-possessed-by-Azazel-lookalike to see if his condition had worsened. It was only a matter of time before they would have to take the shrapnel out, regardless. If EMTs didn't haul ass with the rescue team and arrive soon, Jack would have to do it. The poor bastard couldn't afford to get an infection, or he was as good as dead. They would have to find clean water within a day or so.

            “I'm going to get Jack to check this guy out again,” Dean announced. “You coming?”

            Kate looked up at him, and after a moment of hesitation she stood up as well.

“Why not? I'm not much help here, anyway.”

            Dean smiled. “Let's get going, then.”

 

 

            


	4. Chapter 4

            When Castiel finally drifted off to sleep, he knew he was dreaming. That wasn't what concerned him (putting aside the thought that he shouldn't _be_ sleeping in the first place). He had only experienced sleep three times now, first on the plane, but he had walked in enough humans' dreams that it was familiar territory. 

            Not these dreams.

            He doesn't remember them clearly, just enough to know that these were not normal dreams. He felt unsettled long after he woke up. Dean claimed that he had muttered things in his sleep, but that the hunter hadn't understood any of it. Cas himself did not understand what any of this meant, although he had a terrible, foreboding sense that he might soon find out if they all remained on this island for much longer.

            Accompanying the strange dreams and sleep-talking, something was amiss with what the Winchesters liked to call “angel radio”. It was as though something was faintly scratching at the back of Castiel's mind, like there was something he should be noticing or remembering, but he couldn't grasp it for the life of him.

            His restless sleep left him tired throughout the day. That afternoon – their second full day on the island – he lay down in one of the shelters for a short reprieve.

            He didn't know when exactly he fell asleep, or how long he stayed there, but the angel was dragged back to consciousness by the sound of a voice. His own voice. He hadn't quite understood what Dean meant before by “sleep-talking”, and the idea of it confused the angel so much that he kept himself up long into that night, worrying about it. His voice had sounded hoarse, distressed, unlike his own, but it was the words that he was concerned about.

            “ _Ils les a tués tous -_ ”

            French. Castiel understood it, though some part of him wished that he couldn't.

            “ _It killed them all_.”

 

 

            Sam felt slightly better after resting, and decided to return to his post at the medical area. Still, his feet dragged as though he was wading through water, and his head swam even when he stood up slowly. Trying to blink the feeling away, he made his way up the beach to find Jack and the still-incapacitated man with shrapnel in his side. He found them both in the same place he had left them. No one else was around, a refreshing change from the earlier crowd that the medical bay had hosted.

            “Hey, Jack,” Sam called out, his voice cracking slightly. The doctor's head shot up at the sound of his voice, and relief momentarily swept over his expression.

            “Sam,” he replied. “How are you feeling now?”

            “Much better, actually. Thanks for the mandatory nap.”

            “Well, that's my job.”

            The two of them returned their focus to the unconscious man on the ground in silence for a moment, as if awaiting the third man's voice to chime in with some smart remark. Sam heard another set of footsteps approaching, and turned to see a woman walking towards them. He forced a smile in way of greeting.

            “How is he?” she asked Jack. “Can you do anything?”

            “I can pull out the shrapnel,” Jack replied. Sam and the woman gave him the same confused look.

            “Wait, Jack-”

            “But you said yesterday-”

            “I know,” Jack cut them both off. “I was hoping he'd be at a hospital by now. If I leave him like this, he'll be dead within a day. If I open him up...”

            “If you can control the bleeding,” Sam pointed out, and Jack nodded wearily.

            “If he doesn't go into sepsis, and if I can find some antibiotics, he might be alright.” He suddenly looked at Kate and Sam, as if realizing something, then gestured between them. “Kate, this is Sam. Sam, Kate. He's been helping out over here.”

            “Hi, Kate.” Sam held out his hand and Kate shook it. _Firm grip, eye contact, quick gesture_ , Sam noted. He liked her already.

            “You're brothers with Dean, right?”

            “Yeah. Chat with him already?”

            “Yes.” She smiled. “I'm glad you could help Jack out. It would have been a lot more hectic than this if we only had one trained physician who survived.”         

            “I'm hardly a trained physician,” Sam replied, rubbing the back of his neck.

            “You may as well be, for what you've been able to do in this situation,” Jack added. Sam shrugged, deciding to let it go. He could take the compliments as long as they didn't lead to questions.

            “I came over to let you know I'm going on a hike,” Kate said to Jack.

            “Sorry?”

            “Sayid fixed the transceiver, but we can't use it from here.”

            “Now Kate, wait a minute -”

            “You're the one who said that we had to send out a signal.”

            “Look,” Jack started, then hesitated, glancing at Sam before continuing, “You saw what that... that _thing_ out there... you know.”

            “The thing in the jungle?” Sam asked. He could practically see the gears churning in Jack's mind, trying to grind out an answer without revealing too much.

            “We saw something out in the jungle,” Kate answered for him. Jack looked at her warningly, but she ignored him. “There was a survivor and we saw him get snatched up by that thing that was out in the trees last night. We found him strung up in some branches later, dead.”

            “You can't tell anyone,” Jack cut in quickly. “Don't even allude to it, okay?”

            “What if I tell Dean or Cas?” Sam suggested. “We've dealt with weird. Maybe they-”

            “Would they tell anyone else?” Jack asked.

            “No. Not if I said to keep it quiet.”

            Jack studied Sam carefully before nodding his consent. “All right, all right, but I'm trusting you, here.”

            “Thanks.” Sam turned to see Kate staring back at him, narrowing her eyes and clearly making her own judgments instead of just siding with the doctor.

            He must have passed her test, somehow, because she turned back to Jack to ask, “What makes you think the beach is any safer than the jungle, though?”

            “Just wait for me, will you?” He gestured to the man in front of him and continued, “I don't know how long this will take.”

            “Sayid said the batteries won't last long.”

            “Neither will he.” Jack stated this with a pointed gesture towards the unconscious man.

            Kate frowned down at him, and after a long moment Jack sighed. “We'll need more than you and Sayid out there in case anything happens, Kate,” he told her. He looked up at Sam. “Could you go in place of me, Sam?”

            “Um,” the hunter replied smartly, the request taking him completely by surprise. “Sure, I guess. If that's okay with you, Kate.”

            She nodded once and gestured towards the other shelters further down the beach. “Of course. I agree with Jack completely. We've got to take off soon, though.”

            “Kate?” Jack stopped her as she was walking away. She turned around, just a few steps away from the tent.

            “Yeah?”

            “If you see or hear anything... anything at all, run.”

            Sam looked at Jack's serious expression as she trudged away down the beach, and he suddenly realized just how deadly of a task he may have just agreed to take on. No one knew what was in those trees – or beyond them, for that matter – and he didn't have the benefit of a trunk full of weapons. He should have known.

            “Sorry?” Jack asked, and Sam realized he had said something aloud. The doctor had been looking at him as if he were assessing a patient's condition, and Sam hadn't even noticed. It was unsettling.

            “It's just that it would have been too good to be true if there wasn't anything dangerous and unexplained on this island.”

            They shared a dry, tired laugh, before Jack waved him towards the beach. “You should go catch up with Kate and Sayid, then. No need to stand here and watch me try and take care of this poor guy.”

            Sam nodded and headed back down across the sand, most of it still damp from the earlier rain. It caked on the sides of his shoes and pant legs, and slipped out from under his feet a few times as he climbed the slant to move around some shelters. At least the plane hadn't landed in the water, he thought. At least the water wasn't freezing. They could have gone way off course and landed somewhere that wasn't tropical. As bad as things were, at least the climate was good and they had resources to scavenge.

            Of course, it was still all his fault, Sam thought. He had opened Lucifer's cage. He was the reason they had needed to be teleported out of there in the first place. For all he knew, he was also the reason the second plane had crashed—someone or something's last hope in ridding the world of the two troublesome hunters and their angelic companion once and for all.

            He forced his brain to quit the melodrama once he got to Sayid's shelter. He could see the man tinkering with a walkie-talkie-like thing – the transceiver, he concluded – and chatting with Kate. She had several water bottles in a bag and was stuffing a few blankets in as well. She looked up when Sam approached and smiled at him.

            “And you're certain that he's trustworthy?” Sayid asked, looking over the device in his hands one more time.

            “Yeah,” Kate replied simply. “You said we needed to get it up somewhere high, right?”

            “I did.”

            “Hi, Sam,” Kate greeted him as he stopped in front of the two of them. Sayid looked up and raised an eyebrow in apparent approval at their choice in companion.

            “I see,” he stated quietly as he reached out for a handshake. “I am Sayid.”

            “Sayid. Right. I'm Sam.”

            “Are you rested enough to accompany us?”

            “I think so,” Sam replied, shoving his hands into his pockets in a not-quite-nervous gesture. He felt almost fine, at this point, but didn't know how long that would last.

            “Good,” Sayid said, “because I don't think I am. Can you carry that bag that Kate has there? We will trade it off every so often.”

            “Yeah, sure.” Kate handed him the backpack, which he slung over his shoulders easily despite the weight of all the water bottles.

            “We should start heading out, now,” Sayid announced, standing up. He pointing up the beach, saying, “We will go in that direction, since the hills seem more clear and climbable.”

            Kate and Sam nodded and followed him towards the jungle's tree line. The man looked tough. Experienced, too. His skin was darkly tanned and his posture reminded Sam of Castiel's, strong and rigid. His hair was a little longer than Sam's, and his hands were calloused and steady. _Soldier_ , Sam concluded. _Definitely a soldier who's been trained well, too._ That was a good thing, Sam thought; with whatever was lurking in the jungle, they needed people who could keep their heads in the face of danger. Outwardly, Sayid seemed perfectly cool and collected.

            Sam was suddenly aware of a commotion behind him. After a quick glance over his shoulder, he noticed two people, a man and a woman, walking hurriedly up to their group. They were arguing heatedly over something; the woman looked like she had been crying recently.

            “I'd like to come with you,” she announced as she arrived about six feet from Sam's side.

            “She's not going,” the man said. “She doesn't want to go.”

            “The hell I'm not,” the woman said, wheeling around to face him.

            “It's what she does. She postures.”

            “You don't know what the hell I do!”

            “Makes really bad decisions to upset her family, which, at the moment, is me.”

            “Shut up and stop trying to be charming,” the woman spat. She turned to face the three hikers and announced, again, “I'm coming with you.”

            “I don't...” Kate looked helplessly between Sam and Sayid. They both gave her shrugs that said, _All yours._ “I don't know if that's such a good idea...”

            “What are you,” the woman shot back, “two years older than me? Please. Don't patronize me. You're going, aren't you?” The last part was addressed to a blond man who had somehow joined the group without Sam noticing. _Man, I'm losing my touch_ , the hunter thought to himself. If he couldn't notice people approaching them, it might be difficult to fend off an unknown murderous tree beast.

            “I'm going,” the blond man answered, suddenly looking very eager. “Are you?”

            “Yup,” the woman replied, seeming satisfied with his answer.

            “Yeah,” he said again, “I'm definitely going.”

            “Look,” Kate interjected, “everybody can come, but we're leaving now. And I hope you all brought water for yourselves.” She turned and began walking again. Sayid and Sam followed closely behind. Sam shot a quick smile at the three newcomers before he focused again on the not-path they were on. _What the hell_ , he thought, _the more the merrier. Maybe_.

            From behind him, Sam heard the blond man murmur, “You couldn't tell from that, but she's actually really nice.” Sam found himself grinning at that.

            “What're your names?” he asked over his shoulder, trying to break up the mounting tension between the newly arranged group.

            “I'm Shannon,” the woman stated, “And this is my idiot brother, Boone.”

            “I take offense at that,” Boone grumbled.

            “You were kinda supposed to.”

            “I'm Charlie,” the blond man piped up from the back of the group. “And you?”

            “Sam.”

            “Cool,” Charlie said. He had a thick English accent that rolled of his tongue jumpily, and a noticeable bounce in his step. Hyperactive guy, Sam decided, but not in a bad way. Probably a musician or artist or something, the way energy seemed to radiate off him. Artsy people tended to channel energy like that, right?

            Sam stopped wondering on it as he realized that Shannon was saying something to him.

            “Sorry, what did you say? I didn't really hear.”

            “You're Dean's brother, right?”

            “Yeah, I am.”

            “Huh. Neat.” He could tell that she was sizing him up as he answered her. There was no telling why, from Sam's angle, unless he stopped walking to turn around and face her.

            “You get along with him?”

            “Most of the time, yeah,” he replied.

            “You the younger brother or the older one?”

            “Younger by four years.”

            Shannon hummed in acknowledgment and stopped talking for a bit. She seemed to be mulling over the information carefully.

            After a good, long while of silent walking, they could hear another set of footsteps approaching behind them. Kate glanced back and said, “You decided to join us, then.”

            It was more of a statement than a question. Sam looked back to see another blond man had joined them. He could smell the after-bite of cigarette smoke wafting up from where he stood.

            “I'm a complex guy, sweetheart,” the man told her. Kate appeared to deem this a satisfactory answer and turned back around, trekking onwards like nothing had happened.

            Sam shrugged and followed suit, feeling like the Pied Piper. They all fell silent as they continued walking, and Sam's feet fell into a steady rhythm. It was good to be doing something simple like this, he decided, when he could concentrated on moving his feet and avoiding tree roots. Not as much time to dwell on thoughts. There was just the sound of nature, tennis shoes, and sloshing bottles in his bag to keep his mind occupied.

            Good. Just good enough.

 

 

            Castiel watched Sam walk away with a group of people into the jungle. He sat at the end of the clustered shelter area, close to the shoreline. The light was not assaulting his eyes as much as it had been earlier in the day, but he still found that his vessel required him to squint to make out any distinct shapes in the distance.

            A set of footsteps approached from his left. They sounded heavy, but not without some grace, and they were slowing down. Whoever they belonged to was clearly intending to stop by the time they reached him. Castiel continued staring out at the water.

            “Mind if I sit here?” a female voice asked. She had a distinct accent, the same as the attendants on flight 815. Australian. Castiel looked up at her then, and replied with a simply, “Of course. I don't mind.”

            She was young, blonde, and very pregnant. Castiel may have been lacking in social graces, but he wasn't going to turn her away. His solitude was actually growing tiring. There was a significant empty space in his mind, usually filled with the chatter of his brothers and sisters. Now, silence was truly silent, and he found it... unnerving. Annoying, even.

            The woman sat down carefully beside him. She gazed out at the horizon as Castiel looked over her. He could just barely see the glow of her soul through her physical appearance, another recent change that he couldn't get used to. Normally he could barely see the person's actual body through the shining light of their soul.

            “Of all the places we could have landed, this is definitely one of the prettier ones,” the woman commented.

            “It is a rather nice island, I suppose,” he agreed. The woman turned her head to face him and smiled, looking exhausted.

            “My name's Claire. Yours?”

            “Castiel.”

            “Mm.” She took a second to process the strange name. “Well, Castiel, when do you think they'll be around to pick us up?”

            “I cannot say that I know,” the angel sighed. Were he talking to Sam or Dean, he would say that the likelihood of being rescued anytime soon was slim at best. (Of course, the Winchesters would have already known this, and wouldn't have asked.) However, it seemed like a terrible crime to take away whatever small hope this woman had. Castiel blinked, returning his gaze to the ocean. Claire was right when she said that the island was attractive. The colors were vivid and the scenery was gorgeous. If he didn't still feel like there was something ineffably _wrong_ about the location, Castiel might have been able to relax and find joy in his father's creation.

            “I wish I could help more,” Claire admitted sullenly. “All I feel like is some extra burden for everyone who _can_ work.”

             “Don't view yourself that way,” Castiel told her, turning to look her in the eye. “You have good reason for not lifting things or doing any other heavy labor.”

            She gave a brief laugh at that, though he wasn't sure why. Then her expression turned pensive again. “I know, but it doesn't make me feel any better.”

            “If it makes you feel any better, I understand your position. I find myself unable to do much work, and I don't even have the justification that you do.”

            “...Are you hurt?” Claire was concerned. Castiel was still amazed by the fact that humans had so much compassion for complete strangers, even in a crisis like this. Especially in a crisis. He shook his head and glanced away. Eye contact was suddenly uncomfortable.

            “Not in a debilitating sense, no,” he explained vaguely. “I just feel... helpless, I suppose.”

            “It's okay.” Claire patted his shoulder and smiled at him. “At least you haven't got a passenger.” They both glanced down at her swollen belly before looking at each other once again.

            Castiel felt his lips being tugged into an involuntary grin as he glimpsed the faint, new soul he could see through Claire's abdomen. “How is he?”

            “He's not kicked since yesterday.” Castiel raised his head to see the woman's eyes aimed down and away from him. She shrugged.

            “I'm not sure what to make of it, to be honest, but I'm hoping for the best.” She sighed and shook her head, meeting Castiel's gaze again. She continued, “Technically, I don't even know the gender yet. I've got this feeling that says it's a boy, but maybe that's just my imagination acting up.”

            “Maybe it isn't,” the angel suggested.

            “Yeah,” Claire mused. “Maybe I've got some kind of motherly ESP or something. That'd be cool.” She giggled quietly. Castiel couldn't resist smiling back; some humans simply had infectious emotions, and he couldn't understand them no matter how hard he tried. He was fascinated by them and all of the other oddities that came along with humanity. He had felt that way about them ever since they had developed into being. He also knew that he would likely never understand how the human mind worked, but that didn't stop him from trying.

            “Yes,” he replied, “that would be.”

            “You were on the plane, a few rows in front of me,” Claire commented, changing the subject quickly. “I think. You were with the brothers, weren't you?”

            “I was. Why do you ask?”

            She shrugged. “Making conversation, if that's okay.” To this, Castiel nodded, and shifted into a more comfortable sitting position. He winced as the movement pulled at his injured side.

            “That's fine,” he said. “I would prefer conversation to silence, right now.”

            “So, where're you from?”

            “...A long way from here.”

            “Going to be mysterious, then?” Claire leaned over and raised a single eyebrow comically. Cas imitated her earlier shrug and leaned back on his hands.

            “I... I tend to move around from place to place frequently. Although I remain in the United States, for the most part.”

            “What do you think of Australia, then?”

            “I have not exactly gotten the chance to experience the country.” Castiel tried containing his nervousness. Lying and omitting important information were not things that were supposed to come naturally to an angel of any kind, though his siblings seemed to do more and more of those sorts of things these days; also, Castiel didn't exactly have great charisma in the first place. Thankfully, Claire didn’t seem to notice or care about his odd tone or behavior.

            “Hm. I see. Didn't get to stay long, did you?”

            “No, I didn't.” He held back a relieved sigh. Claire nodded and ran her fingers through the soft sand between the two of them, distracted suddenly by the miscellaneous small shells that got caught in her hand. She smiled, flicking them away and watching them splash in the shallow water that was now lapping at her feet.

            The high tide was approaching slower than it should have, Castiel noted. The scent of brine rushed up at them as the water crept in, receding as the waves did. It was hypnotic. Castiel realized that he hadn't been to the Pacific Ocean for a surprisingly long time; he and his garrison had simply observed, for the most part, and he had not gotten the chance to experience such beautiful scenes for decades, maybe even centuries.

            These thoughts are probably what caused the angel to kick off his vessel's shoes and pull off the hot, knit socks in favor of leaping to his feet and standing in the lapping waves. A few shells and stones dug into his calloused feet, but he ignored the strange pinching sensation, focusing on the cool, soothing water. His nerves jumped excitedly as a pleasant chill spread from his toes all the way up his spine.

            “What are you doing?” Claire laughed.

            “Standing,” Castiel replied. “What does it look like?”

            _You sound like Dean_ , he mused to himself. He smiled at the thought, imagining Dean’s tenor voice proposing the rhetorical question instead of his own. Claire giggled and stood up slowly, walking towards him. A light breeze caught at her hair and loose clothing. Castiel closed his eyes and imagined flying over the vast ocean, his wings spread wide and pumping through the air, salt gathering in light crystals on his feathers only to be whisked away by his Grace like sweat on skin.

            A short, small laugh escaped him as he breathed in the fresh air, exhaling slowly to savor the moment. When he opened his eyes and, rather reluctantly, brought his mind back down to earth, Claire was smiling at him.

            “This isn't a horrible island to end up on, really,” she told him. “Is it?”

            “It could have been must worse,” he admitted. There was a beat of silence that hung in the air, broken only by the wind zipping by their ears and the waves breaking upon the shore.

            “How long's it been since you've been on a beach?” Claire asked him, squinting off at the horizon again.

            “A very long time.” Castiel took another deep breath.

            “Well, then, you should make the most of it while you're here. Even if it's not the best circumstances.”

            “I will try.”

            “Beauty in the wake of disaster,” Claire commented, just loud enough for the angel to hear her.

            He resisted telling her that, in nature, the most beautiful things were also the most dangerous. [ _Just look at Dean Winchester_ , he added, before he could stop himself.]

 

 

            There was chatter coming from the area of the makeshift med bay. _Jack's already back to work?_ Dean muttered something about needing to slip the guy something to just make him _sleep_ already. When he approached, he could see that Jack's shelter was unoccupied, but there were three figures a few yards away.

            “Dude.”

            “Just hand me the strips. I need to get this bleeding stopped.”

            “I don't think I can.”

            “Oh.”

            “'Oh' what? What, what's going on? Something in there?”

            “The strips. Just hand me the strips. Give them-”

            There was a pause. The other voice didn't respond.

            “Don't even think about it, Hurley. Don't even think a... Hurley! Hey!”

            _Thump._

“Damn it!”

            Dean rounded the corner of the nearest shelter to see Jack, the injured man who no longer had shrapnel in him, and a big guy passed out beside them. Jack was clearly panicking, until he saw Dean.

            “Dean, quick, I need you to hand me some of those cloth strips over there.” The hunter rushed over and did as he was told, nudging aside the uninjured unconscious guy.

            “Looks like I've got some good timing today, huh?”

            “Sure do,” Jack replied, out of breath. “Thanks for that. I had no idea that Hurley had _that_ bad of a problem with blood.”

            Dean glanced over at Hurley, who was still face-planted in the sand. “Sorry I wasn't here when you came back.”

            “It's alright,” Jack said as he tightened the bandaging around the man's abdomen. “I can't expect you to always be right here. You'll be needed for other things, too, seeing how you're one of the few people here with any survival skills whatsoever.”

            The doctor sat back on his heels with an exhausted sigh. He loosely gestured to Hurley, and Dean rolled him onto his back. As Dean moved to elevate the man's head, however, Hurley let out a small groan. His eyes opened and he began to sit up.

            “Easy there,” Dean warned, placing a hand on the guy's shoulder. “You'll pass right back out if you sit up too quick.”

            “Thanks,” Hurley ground out, “and sorry for that, Jack. I tried to warn you, man, but I-”

            “It's fine,” Jack told him. “You hardly did it on purpose.”

            “Yeah, but still...” Hurley sat up and brushed the sand off his clothes and face. Dean leaned back out of the way of the cloud of flying grains. The man turned to Dean and held out his hand.

            “Hey there. I'm Hurley.”

            “Dean,” the hunter replied, shaking the proffered hand. “Dean Winchester.”

            “Nice to meet you. Sorry my first impression hasn't been all that great.”

            Dean waved that off.

“Hey, no big deal. We've all got something we can't handle.”

            “I guess so.”

            The three of them were silent for a moment as they examined the injured man in front of them. He was still out like a light, unmoving. In that moment, Dean wished that his med kit had made it into the duffel bag that had mysteriously accompanied them onto the plane. It must still be in the trunk of the Impala, he thought longingly. All that the duffel bag had was an empty bottle (which usually held holy water), a rosary, John's journal, Sam's journal, some pens and pencils, a few extra shirts, a sawed-off shotgun, and some ammunition. On top of the clothes they were wearing, Dean's pocket knife and lighter were on him, and Sam still had one empty flask from his demon blood thing with Ruby.

            It was better than nothing. But it was also no help for a guy with a gaping hole where some of his organs should probably be.

            “Sam's gone on an expedition with Sayid, Kate, and a few others,” Jack mentioned, breaking the silence. “They're trying out the transceiver we found in the jungle.”

            “I thought I saw them wandering off,” Dean sighed. Sammy was not likely going to be in any shape for a trip that lasted any more than a few hours. Hopefully the group would stop to rest, if he needed it.

            “I'll watch this guy for a bit, if you want me to,” Dean offered. “You look like you could use a break soon, Jack.” The doctor nodded and leaned back on his heels for a moment before standing up, which honestly surprised Dean. Jack's lack of protest made it clear just how tired he really was.

            “I've got a few people to check up on,” he stated. There it was. Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and decided against arguing with Jack about it. Maybe the guy would just pass out from exhaustion after a while and leave him with no choice but to rest up for a bit.

            “Yeah, sure,” Dean replied. He and Hurley watched Jack walk away from them and down the beach.

            “If you want to do something else,” Dean suggested to Hurley, “I don't think I need any help here.”

            “You sure?”

            “Yeah. This guy ain't waking up anytime soon, I don't think.”

            “Okay, cool.” Hurley nodded and stood up. (This time, he took a few steps away before brushing the sand off, not showering his companions in grit.)

            “See ya around,” he said to Dean, before he walked off in the opposite direction Jack had gone.

            Dean was left alone with the unconscious man for what he guessed to be around half an hour. He watched the people on the beach wander aimlessly, some maintaining the fire from the previous day, others gathering what little luggage they could still find outside the plane's main compartment. Many, when they thought no one was watching, just collapsed from sheer exhaustion and loss. Dean didn't know which was worse: planes downed by demons, or planes downed by seemingly _nothing._

            He settled on planes just being a shit way to travel anyway, and left it at that.

            “Hello, Dean.”

            The hunter jumped and whipped his head to the side to see Castiel standing next to him.

            “Jesus, Cas,” Dean sighed. “Can't fly and you're still doing that? You've gotta stop sneakin' up on me like that.”

            “My apologies.” The angel stood stoically, barely two feet away from Dean, still wearing his trench coat but carrying his socks and shoes in his hands. Sand was caked around his bare feet. All of his weight was on his right leg, causing his posture to pitch over slightly. Dean frowned up at him.

            “You alright there, Cas?”

            “I stepped on a piece of seashell,” Cas admitted, wiggling the toes on his left foot almost anxiously.

            “Well, how about you sit down, and I'll take a look at it?” Dean offered, patting the unoccupied sand nest to him. Castiel nodded and sat down, careful not to put any pressure on his left side. A painful-looking shard of shell stuck out of his heel. Dean noticed that there were other scratches around it that had been recently healed, but were still red. Cas should have been able to heal the skin on his vessel much more efficiently.

            “It was painful,” Cas mumbled, as if he needed an excuse for bothering Dean.

            “Well, it looks like it would've bled quite a bit if you'd pulled it out earlier,” the hunter pointed out. “I wouldn't be taking off my shoes to walk around. There's all sorts of metal and plastic shrapnel scattered around. You could get something worse than a shell if you're not careful.”

            Castiel nodded, looking embarassed. He winced slightly as Dean poked at the skin on either side of the shell. Dean muttered a “sorry”, and the angel nodded.

            “I'm just gonna pull this out,” Dean told him. “You think that's okay?”

            “Yes. That is... alright.”

            “Alright then. On three.”

            Cas nodded again, anticipation building behind his cool exterior. He didn't want Dean knowing that he was suddenly so sensitive. Not only did this island prevent him from flying, locating individual souls, and detecting angel radio, but it also seemed to dissolve his normal pain barriers. It was as if the buffer between him and his vessel was fading.

            “One...”

            Cas forced himself to relax as much as he could.

            “Two-”

            Dean yanked the shell out. The angel let out an extremely uncharacteristic whimper and took a deep breath in before sighing it back out. He frowned at Dean.

            “You said on three, Dean.”

            “Yeah, and?” Dean lifted the shell up for him to see it clearly. The thing was about a quarter inch thick and razor-sharp on the edge that had been imbedded in Cas' skin. “Helluva nasty one, but it all came out in one go. Probably wouldn't have happened if you'd been expecting it and tensing up and shit.”

            Castiel relaxed his shoulders, knowing what Dean said was right but not enjoying it. He threw the hunter something of a glare and then...

            “Did you just roll your eyes at me?” Dean laughed. Castiel gave him back a small smile, and shrugged.

            “Maybe.”

 

 

            Dean really felt like he shouldn't have been so delighted by something as simple as an eye roll, but the usually stern, stoic angel doing it was just so _comical_. He had wiped Cas' foot off with a short scrap of one of the bandage strips – they were recycled shirts, but at least they were still clean. As he’d pulled the cloth away, he had seen that the injury was already beginning to heal.

            Normally, Cas could have mended the broken skin and muscle in the time it took Dean to snap his fingers. Dean bit back a comment, deciding to let the angel tell him if something wasn’t working right. He was probably overreacting. Cas would let him know if something was wrong. Wouldn’t he?

            Dean looked down at the angel’s foot to see that the wound had begun to close – enough to ward off infection, at any rate. If any of Castiel’s injuries could even get infected. Dean wasn’t sure, at this point.

            The sound of someone approaching from the direction of the water drew Dean out of his thoughts.

            “Hey, Castiel,” Jack’s voice called out. “I was just looking for you.”

            “Were you?” Cas replied, watching Jack as he drew up to a halt beside them.

            “Yeah. How are you faring?”

            “I am fine, thank you.” The angel’s expression was suddenly blank, closed off, a sharp contrast to the casual openness of a moment before. Dean knew the look. The Winchesters were masters of deflection. It didn’t take a genius to realize that the angel was definitely _not_ “fine”.

            “You sure?” Jack asked.

            “I…” Castiel hesitated, causing both Jack and Dean to frown. “I am alright, Jack. You needn’t ask so m-”

            “Cas,” Dean interrupted. “You’d say if there was something wrong, yeah?”

            The angel continued to stare at Jack instead of acknowledging Dean. Cas opened his mouth once then closed it quickly, clearly trying to find a right answer but coming up short. He seemed to be gathering himself.

            “Cas. You hear me?”

            “Yes,” Castiel said simply, still not looking at the hunter.

            “It’s not a burden on us if you’re not going well,” Jack stated. “Better to let us help you now than wait until you think there’s a need for us to do so.”

“I am physically fine,” Cas said, after a long moment, and Dean didn’t like the pause or the need to specify. Something was clearly wrong.

            “Why does Jack have a reason to be worried about you, then?” he asked, voice carefully leveled. Castiel’s eyes finally met his in a warning, almost desperate look. If he was hurt, though, Dean didn’t give a rat’s ass about what the sideways glance was supposed to mean; as far as he cared, Castiel’s well-being came second only to Sam’s.

            “I was… hurt in the crash. It was nothing I couldn’t handle,” Cas explained, looking as defeated as Dean had ever seen him. “I would think you would understand, Dean. I am capable of taking care of myself, and you did not need the extra worry.”

            Dean sighed and gestured between the doctor and his friend.

            “Let Jack check it out, okay?”

            “Why?” Cas asked. “Don’t you believe -”

            “I _believe_ that I’m seeing your foot not healing in the time it usually takes, and that you might be overestimating your capabilities right now,” Dean shot back.

            The angel frowned down at his left foot, and his usual soldier’s ramrod posture slumped. He began removing his trench coat and suit jacket, and Dean could see the strips of cloth covering his side in a makeshift bandage through his white shirt. Jack sat down next to the angel and looked over him once before lifting the button-up just enough to expose the bandages.

            “This is new dressing for it, right?” Jack asked. Cas nodded. The doctor picked at the edges, beginning to unwrap them as he continued, “I guess you picked something up from Sam and Dean, huh? Because this is pretty good.” He peeled away the last of the bandage, and the wound underneath…

            “Jesus, Cas,” Dean breathed, unconsciously reaching up to rub his jaw. The gash on the angel’s side was mostly closed, but Dean could tell how bad it had been. It still looked painful. At least it seemed to be healing now, though; it wasn’t inflamed, and the bandage was clean.

“It’s…” Jack began as he examined the wound. “Well, it’s not infected, so that’s good news. I could have sworn it was a lot worse yesterday, though.”

That was when Dean realized the meaning behind Cas’ warning look. Even if he wasn’t healing at his usual angel-powered speed, he was still healing much faster than an average person would. If Jack started to get suspicious of anything…well, Dean knew what panicked, desperate people did when they found out that _one of these things is not like the others_. The last thing they needed was a confrontation.

            “It always looks worse than it is. He just bleeds a lot,” Dean fibbed quickly. Castiel visibly relaxed when Jack nodded.

            “It’s a good thing I got to you when I did, then,” the doctor replied. “That much blood loss in this heat, that’s still dangerous.” He sat back and reached for fresh bandage strips before continuing, “You seem to be healing up nicely, nonetheless. I’ll just patch it back up, and ask that you check in at least once a day, alright? I may want you to drop by more often than that, but for now, that should be fine.”

            Castiel nodded, wincing slightly as Jack tightened the new bandage.

            “Hey, Jack, I can hold down the fort for a bit if you want to rest up any,” Dean offered.

            “I’ve got too much to do to rest,” the doctor sighed, standing up slowly. “I’d appreciate the help, though. Having somebody on deck over here would be nice. I need to go.”

            The doctor turned around and started off toward the shoreline, every dragging and exhausted stride held up by sheer determination. Dean shook his head but didn’t protest. If the man wanted to be stubborn for now, Dean would let him.

            “Dean?” Cas’ voice chimed in sheepishly from his right.      

            “What is it, Cas?”

There was a pause. “I’m sorry.”

Dean sighed. He could feel a lecture rising out of him. _Oh, what the hell_ , he thought, _Cas deserves to be told off for this_. But when he turned, the angel just looked so… ashamed and utterly un-angelic that the lecture wilted.

They would have to have a long discussion about this later, and Dean knew it. Just him, Cas, and Sam. He was tired of all this secret-keeping. There wasn’t much of a point to it while they were stuck on an unknown island in the middle of nowhere, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: my wonderful beta added the ship-tease line in Castiel's POV, but I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it. Sorrynotsorry. This is not a Destiel or DeanCas fic by any means, but if I do ship-tease or fluff it up a bit, it might occasionally be between those two due to the fact that both my beta reader (Aleigh) and I ship the thing. Fair warning.
> 
> Second: the next update is already underway and will NOT be three months away from publication. That was awful of me. I am so sorry.
> 
> Love y'all. Let me know if you have thoughts, ideas, or concerns! Or just a little blurb on your opinion or reaction to this interesting beast of a story. If you want to visit me on tumblr (because apparently lots of authors are adding this kinda stuff to their descriptions these days) I can be found at redmasque.tumblr.com -- say "hi" if you'd like to!
> 
> [[virtual hugs and kisses]]


	5. Chapter 5

“Okay! Wide open space! You should check the radio, see if we’re good.” The blond guy (Sawyer, as Sam soon found out) broke the long silence as the trees on the path finally thinned out.

“We’re not going to have any reception here,” Sayid explained.

“Just try it,” Sawyer insisted.

“I don’t want to waste the batteries.”

“I’m not asking you to keep it on all day,” Sawyer pressed. He gestured to Sam as he said, “You can even have Gigantor over there hold it up, if you’d like.”

“We’re still blocked by the mountain.” Sayid sounded less tired than Sam would have expected, but he was clearly irritated, and the tension was beginning to fray the nerves of the rest of the party.

“Just check the damn radio!”

“If I ‘just check’, we might not have enough juice when we get to –”

The sound of rustling plants and growling interrupted their argument. The entire group turned as one to face the sound’s origin.  Sam heard the others’ voices begin to rise in panic, but he tuned it out, falling instantly into his hunting instincts. His mind focused solely on finding a weapon; the sounds were too close for running to be an option.

Shannon screamed. Sayid shouted something like, “Go!” but it was lost in the noise.

Sawyer and Sam exchanged some sort of knowing glance; the former reached into the waistband of his jeans and pulled out something metallic that glinted in the light. Kate shouted at them, and Sayid shouted at her, and before anyone else could register what was happening, a large creature burst out of the foliage. Sam whipped out Ruby’s knife and Sawyer aimed his gun. Several loud reports rang out, and the white beast dropped to the ground only a few feet in front of them.

Sam hesitated a moment lowered the knife and, cautiously, approached the creature to see if it was still breathing. The ringing in his ears from the gunshots faded in time for him to hear Kate say, “That’s a… _polar bear_.”

_A dead polar bear, to be specific_ , Sam thought bitterly to himself as he looked it up and down.  A shocked silence spread over the group. That just didn’t make any _sense_.

“That can’t be a polar bear,” Boone tried reasoning.

“It’s a polar bear,” Sayid, Kate, and Sam all said at once.

“Yeah,” Shannon chimed in, “but polar bears don’t usually, uh, live in the jungle.”

“Spot on,” Charlie stated. It would have sounded sarcastic if his eyes didn’t looks so wide that they might about to pop out of his head at any moment.

“Well, apparently _this_ one does,” Boone remarked, shaken.

“Did,” Sawyer corrected. “It did.” Another silence fell over the group.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to the hunter, and he turned away from the bear.

“Where’d that come from?” he asked Sawyer.

“Probably Bear Village. How the hell do I know?”

“No, not the bear. Where’d you get the gun?”

“Got it off one of the bodies,” the man replied, as if it were the most casual thing to say in the world.

“One of the bodies,” Sayid reiterated.

“Yeah,” Sawyer replied, “one of the bodies. Need to say it again? Does anyone else want to say it?”

“People don’t carry guns on planes, do they?” Sam asked bluntly.

“People don’t carry freaky occult-looking daggers, either, do they?” Sawyer pointed to the cured iron demon dagger in Sam’s hand and gave Sam a look as if challenging him to say anything else on the matter.

Sam brushed it off. “Checked baggage, maybe,” he explained, then mumbled, “…and it’s not exactly _occult_...”

“US Marshalls carry guns on planes, and our flight had one,” Sawyer stated matter-of-factly.

“How do you know that?” Kate frowned, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at the Southern man who was still wielding his handgun.

“Because, sweetcheeks, I saw a guy lying there with an ankle holster, so I took the gun.  I thought it might come in handy. Guess what? I just shot a bear.”

“But why do you assume he was a Marshal?” Kate asked, suddenly very serious and guarded.

“Because,” Sawyer explained, rolling his eyes, “he had a clip-on badge.” He produced the item in question, holding it up for the others to view it as well.

“I took that, too,” he admitted. “Thought it was cool.”

There was a beat of stillness as everyone tried to gather their thoughts. Sawyer looked entirely unashamed of stealing from a fellow passenger; that set off warning bells in Sam’s head. Before the hunter could think of anything to say, however, Sayid spoke up.

“I know who you are,” he said quietly. “ _You’re_ the prisoner.”

“I’m the what?” Sawyer shot back, bristling. Sam’s warning bells chimed louder, but he kept calm. These two had been at each other’s necks the entire time they’d been on the island. Maybe they were just quick to point fingers again. Sam tensed nonetheless.

“You found a gun on a US Marshal,” Sayid continued. “Yes, I believe you did. I also believe you knew where it was because you were the one he was escorting back to the States. Those handcuffs that that kid found had been on _you_. That’s how you knew there was a gun.”

“Piss off,” Sawyer bit out.

“Hey, now –” Sam tried moderating.

“That’s who you are, you son of a bitch.”

“Great. Be as suspicious of me as I am of you.”

“Guys –” Sam tried again, moving to keep the two from coming to physical blows.

“But you are the prisoner,” Sayid said, ignoring Sam altogether.

“Fine!” Sawyer shouted. “I’m the criminal. You’re the terrorist. We can all play a part. Sam here’s a supermodel, Charlie’s the university dropout, and who do you want to be?” The last part was directed at a very confused Shannon who gaped at him, unable to answer. Sawyer turned to face Sayid again, but  was cut off as Kate snatched the handgun out of his grasp and shakily pointed it at him.

“Does anybody know how to use a gun?” she asked.

“I think you just pull the trigger,” Charlie suggested, almost comically. Sam took a careful step forward.

“Woah, there, everyone,” he said, and finally they acknowledged him. Third time’s the charm. “I think this is a bit excessive, don’t you?”

“Don’t use the gun,” Sayid warned quietly.

“I want to take it apart, not shoot it,” Kate said, with a note of desperation. Sam sighed and nodded along with Sawyer and Sayid.

“Button on the grip should eject the magazine if you press it,” the hunter directed. Kate did as he said and the magazine dropped out easily.

“There’s still a round in the chamber,” Sayid added. “Hold the grip, pull the top part of the gun.” The ammo was ejected and fell to the ground. Kate picked it up and pocketed it. She handed the magazine to Sayid and the gun back to Sawyer.

“Nobody should have to use it,” she said pointedly.

Sawyer grabbed her arm as she turned to walk away and growled something under his breath. She shot something else back in the same low tone, face a flat deadpan. She yanked her arm out of Sawyer’s grip and approached Sam, Boone, Shannon, and Charlie.

“Come on. We’ve still got a way to go.”

“Right,” Sayid chimed in, all business again. “We should keep moving.”

 

 

A while later, the group reached a high clearing, and Sayid pulled out the transceiver.

“Oh,” Sawyer remarked snidely, “ _now’s_ a good time to check the radio. Not before, but now.”

“We’re up higher,” Sayid stated.

“We coulda just had Sam climb a tree, or hell, just stand up on his toes –”

“Bar,” Sayid interrupted him.

“Sorry?” Sam asked, not sure he’d heard correctly.

“We’ve got a bar!” Sayid exclaimed. “Mayday! Mayday!” Everyone scrambled to gather in close to the transceiver. A strange electronic noise came through and Sayid’s eyes widened.

Sam blinked. “Is that… feedback?”

“Yes, it is,” Sayid mumbled, listening closely.

“What would do that?” Kate wondered. Sayid frowned at the device.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you what would do that,” Sawyer said. “This guy not fixing the radio. This thing doesn’t even work.”

“No. No no no no, it’s not broken,” Sayid insisted, frown deepening in concentration.

“Sayid.” Sam got the man’s attention, and he looked up at the hunter.

“What is it?”

“We can’t transmit if something else, more powerful than this, is transmitting already.”

Realization dawned on Sayid’s face. “That’s right,” he whispered. Sam watched the gears churning as the man thought that over.

Of course, Sam knew from his experience with makeshift transmitters that feedback was a bitch if you were, say, near an AM radio station. Walkman headphones were crappy to begin with, sure, but they did shoot out ear-splitting noises when they picked up feedback. Sam could practically feel the tinnitus come over him at the memory alone.

“Where’s the bigger one, then?” Charlie asked, bringing Sam back from flashbacks of the near-deaf experience.

“Somewhere close,” Sam said. “That signal seems pretty strong from here.”

“You mean it’s on the island?” Charlie exclaimed. “That’s great!”

“Maybe it’s other survivors,” Boone chimed in.

Shannon looked dubious. “From our plane? How would they even –”

“What kind of transmission is it?” Sawyer asked, looking between Sam and Sayid.

“Could be a satellite phone or maybe a radio signal,” Sam guessed. “We might be able to catch it if we get the right frequency.”

“Let me try it. Hold on.” Sayid fumbled with the device for a moment.

“There’s no transmission,” Sawyer said dryly.

“Shut up,” Kate shot back.

“The rescue party. It has to be,” Charlie theorized, voice bright with hope. Suddenly, the feedback faded and a voice crackled through. A woman’s voice, Sam determined, and it wasn’t in English. It took only a moment of close listening for him to realize what it was.

“That’s French!” both Sam and Charlie exclaimed at the same time.

“The French are coming!” Charlie rambled. “I’ve never been so happy to hear French.”

“What is she saying?” Kate asked the group, glancing from person to person.

“D-does anybody speak French?” Sayid stuttered out.

“She does.”

Everyone turned to look at Boone and Shannon.

“No,” Shannon replied, “I don’t… what?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” her brother asked. “You spent a year in Paris!”

“Drinking, not studying!”

Another crackle of static, and a male voice – automated – replaced the woman’s.

“ _Iteration 7-2-9-4-5-3-1_.”

“Okay…” Charlie said as everyone gaped at the device. “What’s that?” No one answered him.

“Oh no no no no no,” Sayid suddenly mumbled, looking closely at the transmitter in his hands.

“’No no no’ what?” Kate demanded.

“The – the batteries are dying!” Sayid exclaimed, nervously fiddling with the radio. “Sam. Hold this a bit higher, will you?”

Sam took the transceiver from him and lifted it about his head, adjusting the frequency settings slightly as he did so.

“How much time do we have?” Kate asked.

“Not much,” Sayid answered her, agitated.

“I’ve _heard_ you speak French!” Boone shouted at Shannon, suddenly. “Just listen to this! Listen to it!”

“I _can’t_!” she shouted back, shaking from nerves.

“Shannon, hey, look at me,” Sam said, looking her in the eye. “Just try, okay? That’s all you have to do. If you can’t understand it, that’s okay, because none of us can, either. Maybe if you can catch a few words, we can figure out what it all means.”

“ _Iteration 1-7-2-9-4-5-3-2.”_

“That voice is weird,” Charlie interrupted. “What is that?”

“Shannon?” Sam prompted her.

“I… I guess so.” She walked up next to Sam and listened to the transmission.

“ _Il est dehors…_ ” the French woman said.

“It’s… it’s repeating,” Shannon stated.

“She’s right,” Sayid agreed.

“What?” Boone’s voice chimed in. Sayid turned to him and explained, “It’s a loop. ‘Iteration’. It’s repeating the same message.”

“I think the numbers are counting the number of times it’s played,” Sam said. “So the next one should end with 5-3-3.”

_“Iteration 1-7-2-9-4-5-3-3._ ”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Sawyer complained.

“It’s a running count of the number of times the message has been repeated. Each one is roughly thirty seconds long, so… how long…” Sayid began multiplying in his head.

After a brief pause, Sawyer remarked snarkily, “Don’t forget to carry the one, chief.” Sayid ignored him.

“ _Iteration 1-7-2-9-4-5-3-4._ ”

The group went quiet as Shannon listened closely to the broadcast. She was frowning and mouthing the words along with the French woman’s voice. After a long moment, she said, “It…  She’s saying ‘please’… She’s saying ‘Please help me. Please come get me.’”

“Or she’s not!” Sawyer interjected. “You said you don’t even speak French!”

“Let her listen!” Kate snapped at him, as Sam and Boone told him to, once again, “Shut _up_!”

“Guys, the battery, the battery…” Charlie mumbled nervously.

“ _Iteration 1-7-2-9-4-5-3-5_.”

The French woman continued her message and Shannon listened intently.

“’I’m alone, now’,” she translated. “Um… ‘On the island alone. Please, someone come. The others, they’re… they’re dead. I-it killed them. It killed them all.’” Sam could see the horrified look spread across her face as she continued. He switched off the transceiver just as the next iteration announcement started, sure that the battery was going to die on them soon anyway.

“That was good,” Boone assured his sister as she stepped away.

“Thank you, Shannon. Really,” Sam added. Shannon nodded in reply and Boone half-smiled a “thank you” to the hunter.

“Sixteen years,” Sayid said suddenly.

“What?” Sam asked.

“Sixteen years,” Sayid repeated. “And five months. That’s the count.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Boone asked.

“The iterations. It’s a distress call. A plea for help. And if the count is right… it’s been playing over and over for sixteen years.”

Sam felt his mouth go dry. No. There was no way that this island was going to be normal. There was no way that they would get off of it until people came to rescue them (but who would find them, anyway?), or angels decided Dean’s special assignment from heaven was ready and they had to rescue everyone in the process. What the hell were they up against? Was the French woman still alive after sixteen years?

“Someone else?” Boone said, breaking the stream of Sam’s thoughts. “Someone else was stranded here?”

“Maybe someone came for them,” Kate suggested hopefully.

“If someone came, why is it still playing?” Sawyer said, voicing exactly what Sam was thinking. They stood, silently staring at the device still in Sam’s hands.

Maybe they shouldn’t have translated it.

“Guys,” Charlie said, finally. “Where _are_ we?”

Their only answer was the distant sound of waves.

 

 

Castiel woke up abruptly with someone poking at his shoulder. He groaned and rolled onto his side to see a large man standing over him. The man smiled as Castiel squinted up at him.

“Hey there, man,” the person said. “You were talkin’ in your sleep and sounded all freaked out and stuff, so I figured I’d wake you up.”

Castiel sighed and ran a hand over his eyes in an attempt to awaken his senses. (He understood why Dean did that so much – it was a classic emotional tell, but it was also strangely comforting. It seemed to anchor him into the waking world.) He sat up slowly and tried to blink away the tired blurriness in his eyes.

“Thank you,” the angel told him. “Did you, by any chance, hear what I was saying?”

“No way, dude,” the man replied. “It was all gibberish or in another language or something. Sorry. Sounded like some of it could’ve been French, though.”

_French?_ Castiel thought. So he hadn’t imagined what had happened that morning, after all.

“ _Ils les a tués tous_ …” he muttered, wishing he could remember what came before it.

“Yeah, that,” the man told him. “And then some other stuff.”

Castiel nodded, trying not to fear the worst but not knowing what else he was supposed to think. A large yawn escaped him as he looked around. Something was missing.

“Where is Dean?” he asked.

“He went to try and get some stuff from his bag, I think,” the man replied. “Like a pencil and paper or something.”

“Ah. I see.”

“I don’t think we’ve met, though,” the man said, changing the subject. “I’m Hurley.”

“Castiel.” The two of them shook hands. Hurley’s soul was large and bright, the angel observed. Even though he couldn’t see souls as well as he normally could, Castiel could still see how brilliant and strong the man’s was. Hurley would be a good friend to have on this island. Dean and Sam’s souls were similar, strong and bright, but theirs had a strained sort of beauty – the kind that had once been hopeful, the kind that made an angel want to do anything and everything to heal the damage. Hurley was just purely human and whole, if Castiel could judge from what he saw.

“Nice to meet you, Castiel.”

The angel smiled. This kind of human soul was what Castiel had fought and rebelled for. Humans could hold so much potential, and so many of his siblings were blind to it all.

“Dean called you Cas,” Hurley commented.

“You may do so as well, if you wish,” Castiel replied. “He seems to think that three syllables are too many for one name.”

“It is a bit of a mouthful, I guess,” Hurley admitted. “I might take up that offer, if it’s okay.”

“It is perfectly fine with me.”

Hurley smiled back at the angel. “Nice to meet ya then, Cas.”

“Likewise, Hurley.”

A comfortable silence fell over them. Castiel watched the activity on the beach with passive interest as Hurley fiddled with a few seashells. John Locke and a young boy were playing a game of backgammon, Claire sat in a detached chair, reading a tattered book, Jack chatted with a tall, irritated-looking man, and two people, husband and wife as far as Cas could tell, fished for sea urchins. It looked oddly quaint for a crash site. The angel took a deep breath in and sighed it back out.

Footsteps trudged towards them from the other side of the shelter. Castiel looked up to see Dean carrying his journal and a pen. The hunter forced a tired smile onto his face as he saw the angel and Hurley sitting there next to the still unconscious and injured man.

“Looks like Sleeping Beauty’s finally up, then,” Dean commented. “How you feelin’, Cas?”

“Much more rested.”

Dean nodded and sat down beside him. He opened the old, leather-bound journal and looked through several pages, carefully reading each word, before he turned to look at the angel next to him.

“Cas.”

“Yes, Dean?”

“What’ve I said about staring?”

“It’s uncomfortable?”

“Yeah.”

There was a short pause as Castiel frowned, unsure what Dean meant. The hunter blinked and sighed. He scratched his head with the back of his pen and looked away from Castiel.

“You’re staring, Cas.”

“Oh.” Castiel finally blinked as he realized that he had, in fact, been staring at Dean for a good minute. He turned his gaze to his hands, mumbling an apology. Dean patted his shoulder amiably.

“S’okay. Hard habit to break.”

He continued reading. Castiel fought the urge to watch the hunter’s eyes roam over the pages or his fingers trace the words lightly as he got to something particularly interesting. Normally, Dean’s soul outshone his physical body, but with Castiel’s angelic abilities dampened somehow, he saw humanity in a new light. The color of the hunter’s eyes and the stubble on his chin and the callouses on his hands were all clear and visible. Details the angel had known in wavelengths and mathematics became a single, cohesive piece of art. It was difficult not to stare.

“I’m gonna go down to the other shelters for a bit, if you guys think you’ve got everything under control here,” Hurley announced, standing up next to Castiel.

“I believe that we do, currently,” Cas repled. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Ditto, Cas,” Hurley said, waving as he walked away. Out of the corner of his eye, the angel saw Dean raise his eyebrows at the nickname.

Silence settled over both of them when Hurley left. The tension was palpable. Before the angel could say anything, however, Dean shut his journal with a loud snap. Castiel, likewise, shut his mouth and let his friend speak instead.

“Cas, were you really gonna tell me you were hurt?”

He hesitated for a moment before replying with an unconfident, “Yes.”

“Cas…”

“No.”

Dean sighed and ran a hand over his face. “Cas, buddy, we can’t keep secrets like that on this island, okay? There’s no point. You cause more trouble if you don’t say anything to Sam or me. Hell, even telling Jack the truth about shit like this is important. Don’t put everything ahead of yourself. You get what I’m saying?”

Castiel gave him a level glance.

“As long as you and Sam abide by the same rule,” he replied with a frown, and then added, “because if any one of the three of us is stubborn, retrospectively, it would be you two. You especially, Dean.”

The hunter searched Castiel’s gaze for a moment. For what, the angel couldn’t tell, but he didn’t seem to find it; he sighed heavily and replied with a simple, “Yeah, Cas. Of course.”

Knowing he wouldn’t get any more out of Dean, Castiel nodded, momentarily satisfied.

“So I have a few questions I’d like you to answer for me,” Dean continued.

“What would those be?”

“Can you not heal like you used to?”

Castiel paused to gather his words. “No,” he answered, “but my vessel still heals faster than a normal human. I will not likely die of a physical wound, but I will be in pain, and this body will scar or weaken.” _I think so, at least,_ he added mentally.

“And nothing’s on Angel Radio?”

“No. Still waiting.”

Dean considered him for a moment. “You need sleep, buddy. Do you feel hungry?”

Castiel frowned again at the question. “I… do not know what hunger feels like.”

“It’s like a… a weird, almost empty or achy feeling in your gut,” Dean explained. “If you’re hungry enough your stomach starts growling.” Castiel concentrated, honing in on his senses to see whether or not he felt any of this. He shook his head.

“Okay, so your Grace or whatnot’s still kicking.”

Dean leaned back on his hands and smiled bitterly at the sand beneath him. “I always told Sam we needed a vacation. This –” he gestured to their surroundings – “wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but at least it isn’t an eyesore.”

“Claire and I were discussing that earlier,” Cas told him. “I agree completely. The situation is far from ideal, but the natural beauty here is undeniable.”

“Claire?” Dean echoed.

“The pregnant woman.”

“Yeah, okay. I remember her. How’s she doing?”

“She is doing well, as far as I can tell. She certainly could be doing worse. I think optimism is her driving force right now.”

Dean nodded. “That’s good. ‘Cause if anyone on this island has a reason to be freaked out right now, it’s her.”

“And us,” Cas noted. Dean laughed.

“Oh yeah, that whole thing with Lucifer rising and the Apocalypse. Right.”

Cas matched his bitter smile – but it was a smile, at least, and this time the silence that filled the air was comfortable. Castiel looked out at the water, resisting the urge to watch Dean again. The waves were a good distraction. They were like a broken metronome falling over and over on the edge of the island.

_Nature, thou art my goddess_.

“Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

“I’m gonna try and write down a record of what you say next time you talk in your sleep. That okay with you?”

“That would be helpful,” Castiel replied. “Hurley noticed it as well, and this morning I woke myself up with it. It’s beginning to worry me. Sleeping in general is beginning to worry me, Dean. I feel excessively tired all the time.”

“All right,” Dean said. He looked out over the water and relaxed his shoulders and neck, rolling his head in a slow circle. He sighed heavily and rubbed his temples.

“Cas,” he said without looking up.

“Yes, Dean?”

“Staring.”

“Sorry.” Castiel looked away, reprimanding himself silently.

He didn’t even understand why he cared; he was an angel, after all, not bound to human convention. All the same, he found himself trying to act human, and – as far as he could tell – slowly getting better at it. Humanity had its darkness, but there was something admirable about their strong senses of free will.

Castiel had always favored humans. He hid it behind the front of the good-little-soldier angel, but he still smiled behind the backs of his siblings as two humans fell in love, as someone forgot his unhappiness in a moment of pure joy, or as a child ran down to the tree on Christmas morning. Humanity sparked a rare and strange sort of emotion inside of Castiel.

He knew he was odd in that respect. God may have told the angels to put humanity first, but his siblings did so only from a sense of duty. There were no emotions attached. In that respect, Castiel felt the need to hide; a unique opinion within an angel garrison tended to have bad side effects.

“You doing alright there, Cas?” Dean’s voice broke through Castiel’s thoughts. The angel nodded, but didn’t make eye contact with him.

“Well, I’m gonna go get Jack, see if he needs any help,” Dean announced.

“I can stay here and keep watching over this man.” Castile gestured towards the bandaged man on the ground. Dean gave him a thumbs-up and stood, brushing sand off his jeans as he did so.

“Stay here if he wakes up, okay? Try to keep him awake and talking if you can.”

“Of course, Dean.”

“I’m gonna go, then.” Dean gave Castiel’s shoulder a quick pat before heading off to join the other survivors further down the beach. The angel watched him in silence until he disappeared amid the crowd of people and shelters. He exhaled loudly, not quite a sigh.

He found himself alone with his thoughts again, with only one sticking to the forefront of his mind.

_It killed them all_.

He was left wondering, terrified of the implications, the possibilities. There was no point in dwelling, he knew, but there was nothing else left to do. He sat still and allowed the sound of the tide rolling in and out fill his senses.

Castiel could swear that he heard something in the white noise. He did his best to ignore it.

 

 

The sunset flooded the small beach with red and orange light. Dean watched the energy slowly diminish as the survivors began to settle down for the evening. He groaned as he stood up straight, rubbing an ache in his lower back. That was the last bandage to tie before he called it a night.

Dean hated to admit that he was getting tired, but… _damn_ , he could just collapse at any second.

The walk back to his shelter was short, thankfully. Castiel was already lounging on his back, gazing up at the stars while the fire crackled a few feet away from him. Dean dropped down on the opposite side of the campfire with a loud, exhausted sigh.

“Did you make that fire for us?” he asked, not bothering to enunciate his words as well as he normally would. At this point, he felt almost too tired to sleep.

“Yes,” Castiel replied simply.

“So you’ve got enough mojo in you to make a fire, still?”

“So it seems.” Castiel yawned, “though it is rather draining.”

“Cas.”

“Hm?”

“Get some shut-eye, alright? I’ll be sure to write down anything you say tonight.”

“Dean,” the angel protested, rolling onto his side to see his companion, “you require rest as well, remember. What you want to do can wait.”

“Nah, I’m not ready for sleep just yet, man. I’ll have plenty of chances to rest up.”

Castiel stared at Dean for a moment, that squint and frown that meant he was holding back an objection. He said nothing, however, and soon enough Dean was the only one outside of the tent, watching the fire as his muscles slowly relaxed and his joints began to feel at ease again. He grabbed a pen and a loose piece of paper out of the back of Sam’s journal, ready in case Cas started talking in his sleep again. It was getting bad enough that the poor guy was waking himself up with it, now. Dean didn’t know what to expect from Cas’ sleep-talking experiences, or what they meant, but he hoped like hell that he was prepared.

It only took about half an hour of waiting in near-silence before he heard Cas mumbling from inside the shelter. Dean forced his legs to unbend and carry him over to the angel’s side so he could hear better. Cas was lying still, the expression on his face completely blank. It was calm enough to seem almost surreal.

Dean leaned in to catch more of Cas’ muttered words. Phonetically, he began writing out what he thought was being said. It had to be Enochian – there was no way around it. It sounded too much like nonsensical babble to be anything else. This part was in a loop, he figured out eventually. Dean stopped writing and just listened.

Cas gasped, suddenly, and Dean checked to see if he had woken up. The angel’s eyes were still shut, but were moving back and forth rapidly behind their lids. His tone changed when he began speaking again, to one that Dean had never heard from the angel before. He sounded frantic, scared; his voice warbled and cracked occasionally, and he was no longer speaking in Enochian. Dean began writing again, unsettled.

It took a few moments for Dean to realize that the language was French (Sam had taken a few classes back in grade school). He could only pick out a few words that he knew here and there, but he wrote down every sound he could catch as fast as possible.

“ _Si qui que ce soit puisse entendre ceci, ils sont morts. Veuillez nous Je vais essayer d’aller jusqu’ au Rocher Noir. Il les a tués. Ils les a tués tous…_ ”

Dean heard “dead”, “I will”, “black rock”, and “all”, but everything else was a mystery to him as he tried scribbling everything down. By the end of the first few sentences, Cas’s voice sounded tired and shaken, but more controlled. It still seemed wrong, though. Dean wanted more than anything to wake him up and comfort him, but he knew that he couldn’t – not then. Not just yet. Cas was still speaking.

“ _Il est dehors. Il est dehors et Brennan a pris les clés. Veuillex nous aider. Ils sont morts. Ils sont tous morts. Aidex-nous. Ils sont morts_.”

“Brennan”… “keys”… “help”… “they are dead”. Dean felt himself go pale, suddenly. Where the fuck was this coming from?

The previous phrases repeated themselves a few times before the message changed.

“ _Il est dehors. Veuillez nous aider._ Veuillez nous aider!” Cas paused as though he were composing himself again before speaking. His voice quivered when he continued.

“ _Si qui que ce soit puisse entendre ceci, je vais essayer d’aller jusqu’ au Rocher Noir. Veuillez nous aider. Ils sont tous morts. Ils sont morts. Il les a tués. Ils les a tués tous. Je vais essayer d’aller jusqu’ au Rocher Noir_.” Cas took a deep breath and sighed it back out, still shaking. He frowned, expression twisting momentarily before he relaxed again. Another sigh escaped him, steadier this time.

The Enochian babble started up again; the same looped message repeated in Castiel’s eerily calm and monotonous voice. Dean shuddered and leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows. He rolled his head back and forth to relieve the tension in his neck. A dull ache shot through his muscles and he groaned quietly. He really should sleep, Dean thought. Everything would feel better after his four hours were clocked.

If only he could get himself to do just that. Sleep. His eyes would close, but his mind still buzzed excitedly. Cas’ constant muttering didn’t help that, either. Dean forced his breathing to stay even and deep, and soon the Enochian melded into the white noise from the waves and wind.

Just as he felt himself drifting off, he heard footsteps approaching outside the shelter. They paused in front of the entrance, but he opted to ignore them, trying to relax.

“How’s it going, Dean?” That was… that was Locke speaking. John Locke, like the philosopher, or so Castiel had noted amusedly to him earlier. Dean hummed what might have been a bitter laugh if he’d had enough energy to make it into one.

“It’s not the worst I’ve been at, I guess,” Dean replied. He cracked open his eyes to see Locke sit down next to him. The man looked over at Cas and frowned.

“Does he normally talk in his sleep?” Locke asked.

Dean had to stop himself from saying, _He doesn’t normally sleep at all, he’s an angel._

“I dunno. I don’t think so,” he said instead, “he at least seemed pretty surprised by it when I brought it up today.”

“Is that all of what he’s said?” Locke pointed at the paper still clutched in Dean’s hand. The hunter nodded.

“May I see it?”

Dean shrugged and offered it to him.

“It’s a couple of different languages,” he explained, “and I only could catch a few words here and there. I never took French in school, but Sam did and I picked up a little. Enough to recognize it, at any rate.”

“What did you take?”

“Oh,” Dean breathed out heavily, “I know a bit of Spanish and some Latin. If there are vowels, I can pick up a few words of Hebrew, too.”  

Locke hummed and nodded his head. He glanced over the page in front of him for a minute, brow furrowed in concentration. The cut over his eye still looked raw and irritated, even more so when he frowned.

“Hey, Locke – s’okay if I call you that? Locke? – have you checked that nasty graze on your eye there?”

“Checked it, yes.”

“When?”

“Around noon or so.”

“Well, it looks a bit angry. You tried disinfecting it?”

“Other people need the alcohol and disinfectant more than I do,” Locke replied bluntly, not taking his eyes off the paper in front of him. “It’s a small cut. Even if it gets irritated, no harm done. It’ll heal up all the same in no time.”

Dean nodded, frowning but not trying to object. The hunter knew he would do the same thing. He could tell that the cut would make a scar, but it wasn’t deep enough to cause trouble in the long run.

“I can see a few familiar words, in the French part,” Locke announced.

“Okay, whatcha got?”

“I can see –” Locke pointed to certain words and phrases as he listed them – “’hear’, that’s singular third-person, and ‘dead’ in plural… and ‘please’, ‘black rock’, and… ‘killed them’.”

The man sighed and rubbed the top of his head with his fingertips nervously. He continued: “This – Brennan – is a name. Irish. And this says ‘keys’… then there’s more ‘please’ and ‘dead’… all variations of the same stuff until the ‘black rock’ shows up again. Then there’s more of that other language.”

They stared at the page, thinking over all of this.

“Well, I don’t know about you,” Locke said to break the uncomfortable silence, “but whatever he’s dreaming about, it sounds pretty bad.”

“Yeah,” Dean replied, sounding distant, “dreaming.”

“You think it’s… I don’t know, something else?” Locke asked. “Something other than a dream?”

_Yes_ , Dean wanted to say.

“I don’t honestly know, man,” he said instead.

Locke nodded in an attempt to look understanding. Maybe he did understand, Dean thought for a moment. Everything on the island was confusing as hell – the thing in the trees, Cas’ sleep-talking and damaged mojo, even the way they got there in the first place.

He hadn’t really stopped to think about it before this. It struck him now, all of a sudden, that _nothing_ made sense here, and he had never felt more lost.

_Where the fuck are we?_

“Do you want to wake him up?” Locke asked. They were both staring at Cas, who was just barely mouthing the Enochian babble now. Dean shook his head.

“Nah, let the guy sleep. I can tell him about this in the morning.”

“Good idea,” Locke sighed. “Maybe we should rest up a bit ourselves.”

“Yeah.”

Locke exited the tent, calling back a quick “See you around” over his shoulder, which Dean returned drowsily. He extinguished the campfire and crawled back into the shelter. The duffel bag served as a makeshift pillow as he laid down across the shelter from Cas. Sleep started to pull him under almost as soon as he closed his eyes.

He dreamt of the open road, the smell of fresh apple pie, even seedy motels – anything but the island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glad I could finally get this one up. Good news: it didn't take three months to finish! Woo! Progress! Thanks to my beta as usual, and thanks to those of you who've stuck around with me. Really, you all just rock. The next update will likely come sooner, seeing as how the end of the school year is fast approaching, but I will not promise anything just yet. Leave a comment for me if you have any opinions on any of my chapters. Seriously, you all probably know how fantastic feedback can be for an author's ego.  
> [[blows virtual kisses]]


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